The United States has many banks that are small relative to large corporations and play a limited role in corporate governance, and a well developed stock market with an associated market for corporate control. In contrast, Japanese and German banks are fewer in number but larger in relative...

The United States has both an active venture capital industry and well-developed stock markets. Japan and Germany have neither. The authors argue that this is no accident- that venture capital flourishes especially, and perhaps "only", when venture capitalists can exit from successful portfolio...

"Much has been said recently about the risky legal environment in which outside directors of public companies operate, especially in the USA, but increasingly elsewhere as well. Our research on outside director liability suggests, however, that directors' fears are largely unjustified. We...

A substantial academic and popular literature argues that the performance of American corporations might improve if American corporations had long-term outside investors (relational investors) who would hold large stakes, actively monitor management performance, and engage with management in...

Common shareholders are not the only important residual claimants on a firm's income. Instead, other claimants, including employees, creditors, preferred shareholders, option holders, suppliers, customers, and the government (as tax collector) also often gain substatially when the firm does...