In this paper, I extend the results of Moskowitz and Vissing-Jørgensen (2002) on the returns to entrepreneurial investments in the United States. First, following the authors’ methodology I replicate the original findings from the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) for the period 1989–1998...

A "sunspot" is a variable that has no direct impact on the economy’s fundamental condition, such as preferences, endowments or technologies, but may nonetheless affect economic outcomes through the expectations channel as a coordination device. This paper investigates how people react to...

In this paper, we define a financial institution’s contribution to financial systemic risk as the increase in financial systemic risk conditional on the crash of the financial institution. The higher the contribution is, the more systemically important is the institution for the system. Based...

We employ a comprehensive data set and a variety of methods to provide evidence on the magnitude of large banks’ funding advantage in Canada, and on the extent to which market discipline exists across different securities issued by the Canadian banks. The banking sector in Canada provides a...

The proportion of assets held by the average Canadian firm in the form of cash has increased steadily since the early 1990s, and is now roughly twice as large as in 1990. The literature has established that the cash-holding behaviour of firms is highly correlated with financial constraints and...

This paper studies the capital accumulation and welfare implications of reducing capital income taxation in a general equilibrium economy with uninsurable investment risks. It has been shown that, with uninsurable investment risks, under-accumulation of capital may result compared to the...

We document the cyclical behavior of debt, equity, and retained earnings for different firm categories using firm-level Canadian data. There is evidence of both procyclical equity and debt issuance for all firm categories but the timing differs. In particular, there is strong evidence that...

This paper investigates the impact of pyramid ownership structure and multiple controlling shareholders on firm leverage. Pyramids, having at least one controlling shareholder and a subsidiary, rely significantly more on debt financing than non-pyramid firms. Moreover, higher leverage is...

This paper studies capital structure adjustment mechanisms of firms that experience substantial changes in leverage. Adjustments appear to be asymmetric among firms with large increases and those with large decreases in debt ratios. The different adjustments are not due to differences in...