I examine the relation between Tobin's Q and the structure of foreign equity ownership for a sample of 945 industrial firms listed in the 1st Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. I find evidence of significant curvilinear relation between Q and the fraction of common stocks owned by foreigners...

The statistically typical form of the board of directors in a Russian joint-stock corporation can be characterized as an open managerial supervisory body with a balanced membership of executive corporate officers and outsider directors. In reality, however, there are only a very limited number...

In a large sample of European firms we analyze the value discount associated with disproportional ownership structures first documented by Claessens et al (2002). Consistent with a theoretical model of incentives and entrenchment effects, we find higher value discount in family firms, in firms...

Mergers in Japan have the dubious distinction of not creating wealth for shareholders of target firms, in sharp contrast to much of the rest of the world. Using a sample of 91 mergers from 1982 through 2003 we document several distinctive features of the merger market in Japan: mergers tend to...

Although some argue that tokenism drives the selection of female directors, we show that they have a significant impact on measures of board effectiveness. In a large panel of data on publicly-traded firms from 1996-2003, we find that (1) the likelihood that a female director has attendance...

We analyse controlling owners incentive to provide non-controlling owners with better protection against self-dealing through offering new shares with tag-along rights, - the private contracting alternative to equal price provision in takeover legislation. Our model identifies two counteracting...

We study the evolution of the control structure for a large sample of privatized firms in OECD countries and find evidence broadly consistent with the concept of "reluctant privatization", defined as the transfer of ownership rights in State-owned enterprises without a corresponding transfer of...

This paper argues, both theoretically and empirically, that sometimes no security law may be better than a good security law that is not enforced. The first part of the paper formalizes the sufficient conditions under which this happens for any law. The second part of the paper shows that a...

We study theoretically the possibility for the parties to efficiently resolve financial distress by contract as opposed to exclusively rely on state intervention. We characterize which financial contracts are optimal depending on investor protection against fraud, and how efficient is the...

We study a demand and supply model of judicial discretion in corporate bankruptcy. On the supply side, we assume that bankruptcy courts may be biased for debtors or creditors, and subject to career concerns. On the demand side, we assume that debtors (and creditors) can engage in forum shopping...