According to financial theory, corporate hedging can increase shareholder value in the presence of capital market imperfections such as direct and indirect costs of financial distress, costly external financing, and taxes. This paper presents a comprehensive review of the extensive existing...

The purpose of this paper is to assess the state of corporate governance as a major factor affecting the growth performance of the private sector in MENA countries. For this purpose both country-specific assessments, carried out by World Bank-IMF teams (so-called ROSC’s assessments) and...

This paper investigates the motivations and practice of nonfinancial firms with regard to using financial options in their risk management activities. To this end, it provides a comprehensive account of the existing empirical evidence on the use of derivatives in general and options in...

The publications about the transition of French corporate governance are controversial fluctuating between proposing the integration of socioeconomic qualities, to the fragmentation of different and persistent systems by the interdependence of their attributes, or the predominance of the...

The main theories that seek to explain the financial structure of firms mainly apply to large public firms and developed capital markets. In this paper we review the existing theoretical contributions to this topic, from the special perspective of small and medium firms, and within the Argentine...

The highly important issue by which a company ensures its required capitals, both as volume, and as structure in due time and at low costs renders the financing decision an essential role in the administration and management process. Selecting the capital structure at company level implies both...

Based on basic financial models and reports in the business press, exchange rate movements are generally believed to affect the value of nonfinancial firms. In contrast, the empirical research on nonfinancial firms typically produces fewer significant exposures estimates than researchers...

À l’origine de cette thèse se trouve la question suivante : « Qu’est-ce qui rend possible et justifie que les licenciements économiques soient de plus en plus nombreux dans les entreprises en bonne santé ? » Autrement dit : « en quoi les décisions de licenciement sont-elles des...

Starting from the observation that at the multilateral level shareholder activism is considered as an important aspect of good corporate governance, this paper examines several legal and economic obstacles to institutional investor activism in the EU and in the US. We also examine the voting...

This paper estimates the foreign exchange rate exposure of 6,917 U.S. nonfinancial firms on the basis of stock prices and corporate cash flows. The results show that several firms are significantly exposed to at least one of the foreign exchange rates Canadian Dollar, Japanese Yen and Euro, and...