This paper empirically examines whether the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (quot;SOXquot;) discourages risk-taking by publicly traded U.S. companies. Several provisions of SOX are likely to have this effect, including an expanded role for independent directors, an increase in director and officer...

Antigravity introduces a transaction so implausibly attractive it would be deemed impossible were it not that U.S. companies already float an inferior equivalent at a rate of nearly $500 billion per year. A Cashless Buyback(tm) is exactly like a cash buyback minus the risk and should be viewed...

On May 11-12, 2011, SUERF, the Belgian Financial Forum, the Brussels Finance Institute and the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) jointly organised the 29th SUERF Colloquium New paradigms in money and finance? The papers included in this SUERF Study are based on contributions to the...

Using a sample of 86 counties, we examine the cross-sectional determinants of sovereign credit ratings around the world. We find that the quality of legal and political institutions of a country plays a vital role in determining sovereign credit ratings. A one standard deviation increase in our...

The recent Split Share Structure Reform launched by the government in the Chinese stock market terminates trading constraints on restricted shares. In exchange for the consent of freely-traded shareholders, restricted shareholders offer them consideration mainly in the form of restricted shares....

It is widely believed that the stock-market oriented US financial system forces corporate managers to behave myopically relative to their Japanese counterparts, who operate in a bank-based system. We hypothesize that if US firms are more myopic that Japanese firms, then episodes of financial...

We argue that the empirical evidence against the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) based on stock returns does not invalidate its use for estimating the cost of capital for projects in making capital budgeting decisions. Because stocks are backed not only by projects in place, but also by the...

Various studies have investigated variation in reporting conservatism with pre-specified contractual incentives. Lawrence et al. (forthcoming), hereafter LSS, propose a model to control for “normal” or “non-discretionary” conservatism while testing for variation in conservatism with...