We evaluate the herding phenomenon among analysts who produce reports on stocks listed at the Italian stock exchange. We apply a methodology similar to that employed in Welch (2000) for the US stock market. We show that analysts recommendations are affected by the consensus among the analysts or...

We study what determines catering through payout policy, and how the ability to cater affects firm policies. We create a catering index, measuring the extent to which the firm caters to its investors' payout preferences. Catering is constrained by market segmentation and dispersion in investor...

We study how organizational complexity affects capital structure and firm value. We measure organizational complexity as the number of layers in the firm's subsidiary structure, and focus on a sample of US firms over the period 1998-2006. We argue that organizational complexity makes the firm...

Using a novel data of institutional investors' bond holdings, we examine a transmission of the crisis of 2007-2008 from the securitized bond market to the corporate bond market via joint ownership of these bonds by investors. We posit that, ceteris paribus, corporate bonds held by investors with...