In view of recent corporate scandals, it is argued that corporate governance can learn from public governance. Institutions devised to control and discipline the behaviour of executives in the political sphere can give new insights into how to improve the governance of firms. Some proposal such...

In this paper, we evaluate firm-, industry- and country-specific factors determining a firm's capital structure. The empirical validity of several capital structure theories has been ambiguous so far. We shed light on the main drivers of leverage and depict differences in industry and country...

Die neuen Märkte für den Transfer von Kreditrisiken tragen auf unterschiedliche Weise und mit Hilfe verschiedener Mechanismen zur Vervollkommnung, Vervollständigung und Informationsversorgung der Finanzmärkte bei. Der Vergrößerung der Handlungsoptionen einzelner Marktteilnehmer sowie der...

This is an exploratory study that attempts to identify and provide empirical evidence on the possible determinants of the market capitalisation of the Harare Stock Exchange (HSE) with the view of understanding the development prospects of the HSE and other similar markets. The study used...

In the 1990s, companies collected billions in premiums from peculiarly structured put options written on their own stock while almost all of these puts expired worthless. Buyers of these options, primarily �nancial intermediaries, lost money as a result. Although these losses might seem...

Securities Transaction Taxes have received much attention over the last few years with countries and global organizations trying to control the level of speculations, especially since the Global Financial Crisis. This study examines the impact of an increase in the level of securities...

The effect of options’ introduction on underlying market is one of the frequently debated themes in financial research. A significant body of literature addresses the question of effects of options’ introduction. The critical review of the literature shows that there is no consensus among...

Our paper investigates the symmetry in stock returns of the 30 most liquid companies traded on Bucharest Stock Exchange during 2000 – 2011 and also the most representative 5 market indices. Our daily data shows that skewness estimates are slightly negative for most indices and individual...

We propose a novel approach to cross-sectional equities sample selection, derived from best market practice in index construction and focused on investability. Using the U.K. market as a template, we first demonstrate how the popular Datastream dataset is plagued by data deficiencies that would...

In Chinese culture, certain digits are lucky and others unlucky. We test how such numerological superstition affects financial decision in the China IPO market. We find that the frequency of lucky numerical stock listing codes exceeds what would be expected by chance. Also consistent with...