The paper investigates whether the presence and tenure of Private Equity (PE) investment in European companies improves their performance. Previous studies documented the unambiguous merit of a buyout during the 1980s and 1990s for listed firms in the US and UK markets. This study analyzes such...

The paper investigates the motives of activity (entry and exit) of Private Equity (PE) investors in European companies. Investment of a PE firm is not viewed unambiguously. First, it is claimed that PE investment is made for the sake of seeking shortterm gains by taking control and utilizing the...

The paper investigates how Private Equity (PE) ownership influences out-performance of a high-growth firm, and whether it differs from the effect of two other important types of financial investors: banks and non-bank financial firms. We transform the levered return on equity into a unlevered...

The paper investigates the link between bank concentration and a country's buyout market. We perform a macro level analysis for 15 European countries during 1997-2007. We estimate the elasticity of the country i's buyout market to country i's concentration in the banking sector. Our major...

This study questions the popular stereotype that women are more risk averse than men in their financial investment decisions. The analysis is based on micro-level data from large-scale surveys of private households in five European countries. In our analysis of investment decisions, we directly...

Since the summer of 2007, participants in financial markets have been confronted by a crisis of their own making. In order to prevent the recurrence of a similar crisis in the future, the G-20 nations, at their finance summit in Washington on 15 November 2008, resolved to "ensure that all...

With banking sectors worldwide still suffering from the effects of the financial crisis, public discussion of plans to place toxic assets in one or more bad banks has gained steam in recent weeks. The following paper presents a plan how governments can efficiently relieve ailing banks from toxic...

This paper explores the relationship between self-declared risk aversion of private investors and their willingness to hold diversified portfolios of financial assets. The analysis is based on household survey data from the German Socioeconomic Panel (SOEP) that provides a reliable measure of...

This study investigates whether gender discrimination is taking place in an innovative credit market known as peer-to-peer lending. Based on the data of the largest German peer-to-peer lending platform, we observe that female borrowers pay on average higher interest rates than males despite the...