This paper models the borrowing decision of a small firm seeking a bank loan when it can optionally hire, at a cost, an independent external auditor to convey its risk characteristics to lenders. The analysis shows that a necessary condition for a potential borrower to prefer having an audit to...

This paper uses an agency theory perspective to develop an understanding of the determinants of auditor change for small firms in the United Kingdom. The paper, therefore, extends the existing literature (see Williams [22] and Francis and Wilson [9]) from a consideration of auditor change for...

The article analyzes the factors determining the capital structure of the Spanish small and medium enterprises [SMEs]. The analysis is grounded on the agency theory, the signalling approach and the pecking order theory. In particular, the article provides a qualitative and quantitative analysis...

Two recent papers examine the impact of corporate bankruptcy laws on new business start-ups in 29 countries over 1990 - 2008 (Peng et al., 2010; Lee et al., 2010). In this commentary, I briefly point out two significant issues which future researchers might want to consider. First, several countries...

We examine whether and how investors' reliance on financial information is affected by the rate of sales growth of a start-up venture. We find that investors discern between firms by the extent to which their products are adopted by the market. For firms that failed to increased their sales...

The motivation for this contingency-type study is based on the notion that prior studies on management accounting systems (MAS) has almost entirely focused on large business organizations and neglected consideration of the effects of contextual variables and MAS on organizational effectiveness...

Often economists are asked to value business. Many times the information provided is minimal and of questionable value. Data may be provided by parties wishing to bias the valuation. The financial statements typically provided are balance sheets and income statements. These sources can be...

Sovereign wealth funds have recently moved to the front and center of discussion, both within the investment world and the political arena. In this paper we evaluate the differences and common features of these funds. Utilizing an ownership database, we probe the ownership, geographic, and...

Using a de facto classification of exchange-rate regimes, this paper investigates how the volatility of PPP-GDP per person and per hour of work is associated with such regimes in Mexico and in Canada. It finds that, for Mexico unlike Canada, the macroeconomic volatility left is much greater...

The objective of this study is to investigate the long-run performance of initial public offerings (IPO) in Germany for the period from 1977 to 1995. Of particular interest is to examine whether underpricing and the timing of subsequent seasoned equty offerings (SEO) may help to explain why some...