This paper provides a theory of strategic innovation project choice by incumbents and start-ups. We show that prohibiting killer acquisitions strictly reduces the variety of innovation projects. By contrast, we find that prohibiting other acquisitions only has a weakly negative innovation...

This paper provides a theory of strategic innovation project choice by incumbents and start-ups which serves as a foundation for the analysis of acquisition policy. We show that prohibiting acquisitions has a weakly negative innovation effect. We provide conditions determining the size of the...

This paper provides a theory of strategic innovation project choice by incumbents and start-ups which serves as a foundation for the analysis of acquisition policy. We show that, in spite of countervailing incentives on incumbents and entrants, prohibiting acquisitions has a weakly negative...

This paper provides a theory of strategic innovation project choice by incumbents and start-ups which serves as a foundation for the analysis of acquisition policy. We show that prohibiting acquisitions has a weakly negative innovation effect. We provide conditions determining the size of the...

This study examines how family firm characteristics affect capital structure decisions. In our analysis we disentangle the influence of three distinct components of a family firm: ownership, supervisory and management board activities by the founding family. Thereby, we use a unique panel...

We empirically study the use of value-based management systems in listed German firms and examine implications for firms' stock market performance. Using a novel, hand-collected data set covering 1,083 firm years from 2002 to 2008, we find that value-based management systems become increasingly...

While in the US stock-based incentives are commonly used since the 50s of the last century, in Germany they were invented only some ten years ago. Even in 1996 firms faced considerable regulatory difficulties when willing to grant such incentives. In the meantime the legal environment has...

Around the world (with the U.S. and U.K. as exceptions) concentrated ownership structures and controlling shareholders are predominant even among listed firms. We provide novel empirical evidence how such controlling shareholders, in particular founding families, affect payout policy decisions....

We address the question of whether hedge fund and private equity investments in public firms are motivated by corporate governance improvements. As opposed to traditional financial investors both HF and PE are likely to have the incentives to alleviate agency conflicts. However, against the...

Recent research indicates that the majority of listed firms in Germany (and also in many other countries around the world) have a dominant owner rather than being widely-held. Hence, owner-dominated firms comprise an important subset of listed companies. This article introduces the concept of an...