We shed new light on the corporate governance role of institutional investors in markets where concentrated ownership and business groups are prevalent. When companies have controlling shareholders, institutional investors, as minority shareholders, can play only a limited role in corporate...

Most stock exchange regulators around the world reacted to the 2007-2009 crisis by imposing bans or regulatory constraints on short-selling. Short-selling restrictions were imposed and lifted at different dates in different countries, often applied to different sets of stocks and featured...

We present a model in which issuers of asset backed securities choose to release coarse information to enhance the liquidity of their primary market, at the cost of reducing secondary market liquidity or even causing it to freeze. The degree of transparency is inefficiently low if the social...

Exploring the period since the inception of the euro, we show that secondary-market yields on Italian public debt increase in anticipation of auctions of new issues and decrease after the auction, while no or a smaller such effect is present for German public debt. However, these yield movements...

This paper examines the role of credit rating agencies in the subprime crisis that triggered the 2007-08 financial turmoil. The focus of the paper is on two aspects of ratings that contributed to the boom and bust of the market for asset-backed securities: rating inflation and coarse information...

This paper deals with the principal-agent relationships involved by the management of pension funds. The focus is made on private defined benefit pension funds in the US. We first underline the main characteristics of management and financial pension policy. We then identify the principal-agent...

The asset allocation principles to be followed by pension funds have recently recorded some important modifications on the international level. Canadian pension funds have also been subject to these evolutions. The main modifications concern the gradual elimination of some portfolio constraints,...

Economic Analysis of Law versus Institutionnalism. A “in situation” comparison This paper compares two approaches of law economics concerning the same empirical object - the United States employees savings schemes – on one hand within the framework of mainstream Law and Economics and on...

Since ten years, an increasing proportion of pension funds faces to severe financial difficulties, addressing some questions about the management of these institutions and the effectiveness of the regulatory framework. This thesis aims to analyze the investment decisions and financial risk...