This study empirically examines the development of the high-yield segment of the corporate bond market in the United States, as a pioneer country, and the United Kingdom and the euro area, as later adopting countries. Estimated diffusion models show for the United States a significant pioneer...

In recent years, demutualized stock exchanges have been increasingly engaging in M&A and alliance activities. To examine the effect of these growth strategies on exchange shareholders’ value creation, we focus on 14 public stock exchanges and investigate their short-run share price responses...

In 2001, government guarantees for savings banks in Germany were removed following a law suit. We use this natural experiment to examine the effect of government guarantees on bank risk taking, using a large data set of matched bank/borrower information. The results suggest that banks whose...

The paper shows that mispriced deposit insurance and capital regulation were of second order importance in determining the capital structure of large U.S. and European banks during 1991 to 2004. Instead, standard cross-sectional determinants of non-financial firms’ leverage carry over to...

During 2005-2006, the Chinese government implemented a reform aimed at eliminating the so-called non-tradable shares (NTS), shares typically held by the State or by politically connected institutional investors that were issued at the early stage of financial market development. Our analysis,...

Banks play a special role as providers of informative signals about the quality and value of their borrowers. Such signals, however, may have a quality of their own as the banks' selection and monitoring abilities may differ. Using an event study methodology, we study the importance of the...

Using count-data techniques, this paper studies the determinants of currency choice in the issuance of foreign-currency-denominated bonds. In particular, we investigate whether bond issuers choose their issuance currency in order to exploit the borrowing-cost savings associated with deviations...

Banks play a role in the corporate governance of firms as well as acting as debt financiers around the world. Universal banks can have control over borrowing firms by representation on the board of directors or by holding shares through direct stakes or institutional holdings. We investigate the...