In a democracy, a political majority can influence both the corporategovernance structure and the return to human and financial capital.We argue that when financial wealth is sufficiently diffused, thereis political support for a strong governance role for dispersed equitymarket investors, and...

We study whether the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002 made firms less opaque. For identification, we use a difference-in-differences estimation approach and compare EU firms that are cross-listed in the US—and therefore subject to SOX—with comparable EU firms that are not cross-listed. We...

This discussion paper resulted in a publication in the <I>Journal of Corporate Finance</I> (2011). Vol. 17, issue 5.<P> This paper analyzes the impact of blockownership dispersion on firm value. Blockholdings by multiple blockholders is a widespread phenomenon in the U.S. market. It is not clear, however,...</p></i>

Legislation affects corporate governance and the return to human and financial capital. We allow the preference of a political majority to determine both the governance structure and the extent of labor rents. In a society where median voters have relatively more at stake in the form of human...

We allow the preference of a political majority to determine boththe corporate governance structure and the division of profits betweenhuman and financial capital. In a democratic society where financialwealth is concentrated, a political majority may prefer to restraingovernance by dispersed...

This discussion paper led to a publication in <A href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1544612310000176"><I>Finance Research Letters</I></A>, 7(2), 127-34.<P>We argue that the recent corporate governance reform in the Netherlands provides a natural experiment to explore the impact of changes in corporate governance on financing policy. We find that, relative to a...</p></i></a>

We establish that CEOs of companies experiencing volatile industry conditions are more likely tobe dismissed. At the same time, industry risk is, controlling for various other factors, unlikelyto be directly associated with CEO compensation other than through dismissal risk. Using...

We argue in favour of the shareholder model of the firm for three main reasons. First, serving multiple stakeholders leads to ill-defined property rights. What sounds like a fair compromise between stakeholders can easily evolve in a permanent struggle between the stakeholders about the ultimate...

This discussion paper has resulted in a chapter in: (R.U. Ayres, D. Simpson, and M. Toman (eds.)), Scarcity and Growth in the Millennium, 2005, Resources for the Future, Washington DC, 177-97.

This paper evaluates the strength of social and economic forces that affect the pressure to emigrate 'out of Africa' for four distinctly different African countries (Morocco, Egypt, Senegal and Ghana). In general, great expectations about attaining a higher living standard and expected low job...