It is well known that Micro and Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of the economy. Most of these companies use external financing sources like debt and equity capital to finance their activities. However, in general, in the area of SMEs' access to finance, there are...

This paper analyzes influences on the credit standing of Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), specifically the quality, diversification and single name concentration of their portfolios, and on the market practice known as Preferred Creditor Status (PCS), whereby sovereigns that default on...

We consider a multi-period rational expectations model in which risk-averse investors differ in their information on past transaction prices (the ticker). Some investors (insiders) observe prices in real-time whereas other investors (outsiders) observe prices with a delay. As prices are...

We study the real-time characteristics and drivers of jumps in option prices. To this end, we employ high frequency data from the 24-hour E-mini S&P 500 options market. We find that option prices do not jump simultaneously across strikes and maturities and are uncorrelated with jumps in the...

We document that a theoretically founded, real-time, and easy-to-implement option-based measure, termed synthetic-stock difference (SSD), accurately estimates the part of stock's expected return arising from stock's transaction costs. We calculate SSD for U.S. optionable stocks. SSD can be more...

In recent years, venture capital has become an important source for nancing young entrepreneurial rms. Given the apparently more innovative nature and extra value added of venture capital backed rms compared to other firms, policy makers have taken an increasing interest in an active venture...

We test under what circumstances boards discipline managers and whether such interventions improve performance. We exploit exogenous variation due to the staggered adoption of corporate governance laws in formerly Communist countries coupled with detailed ‘hard’ information about the...

This white paper explores a range of potentially attractive partnerships, including those between established US industry members, the entrepreneurial CE (clean energy) community, and the financial industry. These partnerships, include those that can leverage a wide range of entrepreneurial and...

The ownership nationality of large US multinational companies plays an implicit but important role in the current debate over how such companies should be taxed. This paper identifies that role and investigates what is actually known about where these companies’ shareholders reside

The first part of the paper describes how over time credit rating agencies ceased to play the role of information intermediaries. Rating agencies did not provide information about the risk associated with the securitized instruments, but they simply enabled structurers to create and maintain...