This study examines the extent to which agency-based models and asymmetric information theories explain dividend smoothing around the world. Tests on a cross-section of more than two thousand firms from twenty-four countries show that managers of firms with low market-to-book ratios and less...

Using seventeen observable demographic characteristics, we investigate the impact of six CEO profiles on dividend policy. Firms headed by married, Republican, Christian CEOs with children maintain higher dividend yields and are more likely to considerably increase their dividend payout....

Bond clawback provisions allow the issuer to partially redeem a bond issue often within 3years of issuance using proceeds only from new equity issues. We document that clawback bonds are often renegotiated and clawbacks provisions are rarely exercised. We find that the probability of exercising...

Using euro area firm-level data since the recent financial crisis, we test whether bank lending constrained small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are more likely to use or apply for alternative external finance including trade credit, informal lending, loans from other companies, market...

We exploit the 1996 telecommunications deregulation as a quasi-natural experiment to investigate whether incumbents alter debt and capacity tactics when facing new rivals. We find that incumbents increase leverage after deregulation, even when controlling for traditional determinants and market...

Using a simple theoretical model, this paper argues that an increase in foreign presence, which refers to the level of foreign investment in a given domestic firm, can affect the leverage of domestic firms. We apply the model to explore the link between foreign presence and leverage with firm...

We investigate whether and how multinationality affects the opaqueness of the firm. We use multiple alternative measurements of multinationality and opaqueness. Spanning nearly three decades for a large sample of US non-financial firms, we find a statistically and economically significant,...

This paper investigates whether multinational firms are less or more efficient in innovation activities than domestic firms. Using patents and citations scaled by R&D expenses and R&D capital as measures of innovation efficiency, we find that multinational firms have lower levels of innovation...

This paper examines the leverage policies of multinational corporations (MNCs) in comparison to those of domestic corporations (DCs). Prior studies document that MNCs have lower leverage levels. However, our analysis of U.S. firms over the period 1981–2010 reveals that the leverage levels of...

Shareholder agreements are contracts that govern the relationship among different shareholders in a firm. This article uses a unique dataset to analyze shareholder agreements in listed companies and shows how they affect firm valuation. While shareholder agreements may be used to expropriate...