We analyze the impact of a 75 pct. Break-Through rule on 1,035 European firms with dual class shares. In 3-5 pct. of the firms the controlling owners incur a direct loss of control, whereas in additional 11-17 pct. of the firms the controlling owners are likely to incur a control loss. Firms in...

Recent policy initiatives within the harmonization of European company laws have promoted a so-called "principle of proportionality" through proposals that regulate mechanisms opposing a proportional distribution of ownership and control. We scrutinize the foundation for these initiatives by...

We follow the evolution of ownership structure in a sample of 80 Israeli companies that unified their dual-class shares in the 1990s, and compare it with a control sample of firms that maintained their dual share structure at least until 2000. Our main findings are as follows. First, controlling...

We test one of the main predictions of the financial flexibility paradigm that expectations about future firm-specific shocks affect the firm's leverage. We extract the expectations of small and large future shocks from the market prices of equity options. We find that expectations for future...

This paper studies whether the monotonicity condition of the investment-cash flow sensitivity is satisfied empirically. We show that if this condition holds, then the point of sample separation does not affect the monotonic relationship between the sensitivities of any two complementary classes...

Thinly traded securities exist in both emerging and well developed markets. However, plausible estimations of market risk measures for portfolios with infrequently traded securities have not been explored in the literature. We propose a methodology to calculate market risk measures based on the...

We study whether climate transition risk is reflected in the credit default swap (CDS) spreads of firms. Using information on the vulnerability of a firm's value to the transition to a low carbon economy, we construct a climate transition risk (CTR) factor, and document how this factor shifts...

This paper studies the interplay between environmental performance and financial valuation of firms in Latin America and the Caribbean. We provide insights into how environmental considerations are integrated into financial decision-making and investor behavior by analyzing the stock market...

We examine initial public offerings (IPOs) with single, multiple, and no credit ratings. We document a beneficial effect of credit ratings on IPO underpricing, which is amplified by the existence of multiple credit ratings. Multiple ratings also reduce the extent of filing price revisions....

Implementing the complex Agenda 2030, with its high global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires, in the by now short time horizon of reference, an extraordinary effort, at all institutionals and private levels, to converge effectively on the whole system of intermediate and interrelated...