This paper investigates the determinants of a broad sample of Swiss non-financial firms’ cash holdings between 1995 and 2004. The median Swiss firm holds almost twice as much cash and cash equivalents as the median U.S. or U.K. firm. Our results indicate that asset tangibility and firm size...

Previous research on firm performance does not adequately account for the interrelatedness of a firm's professional connections, political ties, and family business-group affiliation. Many widely-cited findings may therefore be subject to confounding bias. To address this problem, we adopt a...

The paper analyzes the interplay of product market competition and governance on CEO compensation in Italian listed firms from 2000 to 2011 and tests the impact of the 2007-08 financial crisis on pay-performance sensitivity. We argue that important differences both in the level of compensation...

We argue in favour of the shareholder model of the firm for three main reasons. First, serving multiple stakeholders leads to ill-defined property rights. What sounds like a fair compromise between stakeholders can easily evolve in a permanent struggle between the stakeholders about the ultimate...

This paper analyzes the impact of blockownership dispersion on firm value. Blockholdings by multiple blockholders is a widespread phenomenon in the U.S. market. It is not clear, however, whether dispersion among blockholder is preferable to having a more concentrated ownership structure. To test...

This paper is aimed to explore and compare disclosure on corporate governance mechanisms in the annual reports of commercial banks for two emerging countries: Romania and Malaysia. There were selected 34 banks situated in Romania and Malaysia, in order to highlight the influence of culture and...