In this paper we survey the common explanations of barter in transition economies and expose them to detailed survey data on 165 barter deals in Ukraine in 1997. The evidence does not support the notion that soft budget constraints, lack of restructuring, or that the virtual economy are the...

The virtual economy argument for Russia suggests that barter -a payment in goods rather than cash - allows the parties to pretend that the manufacturing sector is producing value added by enabling this sector to sell its output at a higher price than its market value. We confront this prediction...

It is typically less profitable for an opportunistic borrower to divert inputs than to divert cash. Suppliers, therefore, may lend more liberally than banks. This simple argument is at the core of our contract theoretic model of trade credit in competitive markets. The model implies that trade...

This paper demonstrates that the monetary policy of the National Bank of Hungary is restrictive and has ignored the liquidity problems raised by the overhang of inter-enterprise liquidity. The implication is that the success of the transition to market is thereby jeopardized.

We study a continuous time model of a levered firm with fixed assets generating a cash flow that fluctuates with business conditions. Since external finance is costly, the firm holds a liquid (cash) reserve to help survive periods of poor business conditions. Holding liquid assets inside the...

This paper empirically analyses the determinants of an initial public offering (IPO) and the consequences of this decision on a company's investment and financial policy. We compare both the ex-ante and the ex-post characteristics of IPOs with those of a large sample of privately held companies...

This Paper investigates valuation effects of share block transfers and employs agency theory to explain the determinants of block premia. A sample of transactions from Poland is used to measure benefits and costs of ownership concentration. Block premia are found to be substantially lower than...

In this Paper we analyse an entrepreneur/manager’s choice between private and public ownership in a setting in which management needs some ‘elbow room’ or autonomy to manage the firm optimally. In public capital markets, the corporate governance regime in place exposes the firm to...

We follow the evolution of ownership structure in a sample of 80 Israeli companies that unified their dual-class shares in the 1990s, and compare it with a control sample of firms that maintained their dual share structure at least until 2000. Our main findings are as follows. First, controlling...

This Paper investigates the impact of ownership patterns on the way the firm is monitored, on the liquidity of its shares, and on its stock price. Building on the literature showing that local mutual funds (funds holding geographically close firms) enjoy superior returns due to private...