The article considers that conceptual frameworks exist not to portray truth as an absolute, but rather to provide order and guidance to actions and behavior. From such perspective, the article considers that ethical frameworks assist in our attempt to balance the instinct that we have to look...

This paper examines governance explanations for the discount of preferred shares to common shares in the Russian market. Conflicts between shareholder classes may help explain the discount. However, for this to be the sole explanation the estimated models suggest that the magnitude of future...

Using data from 20 countries that have suffered a currency crisis, this paper studies firm-level leverage and performance before and after a crisis has occurred. First we provide some evidence of increasing leverage both before and after a crisis. We show that, in the years preceding a currency...

Using company level data from 17 countries that have suffered a currency crisis during the past decade, this paper documents that firms have increasing leverage and declining profitability prior to a crisis, while still making positive net investments. After sorting companies into two groups...

This paper presents empirical results of the effects of board structure and composition on individual board level performance using data from New York City nonprofits. The results support a model of executive behavior in which the nonprofit executive uses his or her power to push boards towards...

We consider legal rules that determine the price at which minority shareholders can be excluded from the corporate enterprise after a change in control. These rules affect investment after such a change as well as the probability of the change itself. Our principal results are that minority...

We have seen a revival in interest in corporate law and corporate governance since the 1980s, as researchers applied the tools of the new institutional economics and modern corporate finance to analyze the new transactions emerging in the 1980s takeover wave. This article focuses on three...

Parties to lending agreements can create priority rankings in two ways: by securing a lender or by protecting the lender's debt with financial covenants. Protected debt turns into high priority debt because the early lender will permit covenant violations only if a later lender agrees to...

Government regulation of financial reporting by publicly listed firms, coupled with a punitive regime for violation of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) has been in place in the United States for seven decades. Whether this regime is effective or useful is an open question,...

Design of contracts that define firms, and their accounting systems depends on the conditions in the firm's factor and product markets. We examine the fundamental difficulty of defining and developing "uniform" accounting for diverse economic environments across countries and compare the...