In the presence of high uncertainty and limited experience, can observing the actions of other acquiring predecessors help firms make better acquisition decisions? Using a sample of cross-border M&As conducted by US acquirers in developing countries, we document a positive and significant...

According to recent law and finance research, legislation is essential to financial development. More effi-cient financial markets would be achieved by reforming the laws governing investor protection and cor-porate governance systems. The Companies Act has traditionally played a very important...

We study a financial market adverse selection model where all agents are endowed with initial wealth and choose to invest as entrepreneurs or financiers, or not to invest. We show that often a lack of outside finance leads to the emergence of financial markets where availability of outside...

While the signalling hypothesis has played a prominent role as the economic rationale associated with the initial public offering (IPO) underpricing puzzle (Welch, 1989), the empirical evidence on it has been mixed at best (Jegadeesh, Weinstein and Welch, 1993; Michaely and Shaw, 1994). This paper...

This paper examines the determinants of the choice of financial advisors and their impact on the announcement effects of US acquirers in cross-border M&As. Two hypotheses are tested: one pertains to the acquiring firms’ home preference in selecting financial advisors, and the other relates to...

The solvency standards implicit in bank capital levels, as reported eg in Jackson et al (2002), are much higher than those required for top ratings, if standard single period economic capital models are taken se-riously. We explain this excess capital puzzle by forward looking rating targeting...

We offer a unified framework to analyze the determination of employment, employee effort, wages, profit sharing and capital structure when firms face stochastic revenue shocks. We apply a generalized Nash bargaining solution, which extends the wage bargaining literature by incorporating...

On 3 July 2015, SUERF organized its sixth joint conference with the Bank of Finland in Helsinki on the subject of liquidity and market efficiency. The one-day program consisted of an opening speech, six presentations, including three keynotes, and a lunchtime address. The present SUERF Study...

This paper examines what institutional and bank-specific factors determine bank stock price synchronicity. Using data on 37 countries from 1996–2007, we find that bank stocks are more aligned with the whole market (1) during the financial crisis; (2) in countries that have more credit provided...

We study the basic economic problem of choice between long-term and short-term commitments under a general characterization of uncertainty (aggregate uncertainty). When contingencies are contractible, a perfect market of Arrow-Debreau contingent claims implements the social optimum. When...