We investigate how politics (party orientation, national elections, and strength of democratic institutions) affect stock market volatility. We hypothesize that labor-intensive industries, industries with larger exposure to foreign trade, industries whose operations require efficient contracts,...

Data on corporate governance and disclosure practices reveal wide within-country variation that decreases with the strength of investors' legal protection. A simple model identifies three firm attributes related to that variation: investment opportunities, external financing, and ownership...

We investigate how predatory government policies (expropriation, lack of property rights protection, corruption, crime) interact with managerial incentives in shaping firm governance structure. Our model shows that owners have lower incentives to encourage valuemaximization by managers if the...