We survey 78 Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) from 12 European countries about the determinants of going public and exchange listing decisions. The CFOs identify enhanced visibility and prestige, and financing for growth as the most important benefits of an IPO. Their views on other motivations...

As domestic sources of outside finance are limited in many countries around the world, it is important to understand factors that influence whether foreign investors provide capital to a country's firms. We study 4,409 firms from 29 countries to assess whether and why concerns about corporate...

This paper investigates the valuation effects of corporate international diversification by examining cross-border mergers and acquisitions of U.S. acquirers over the period 1990-1999. We find that, on average, acquisitions of quot;fairly valuedquot; foreign business units do not lead to value...

We examine a primary outcome of corporate governance, the ability to identify and terminate poorly performing CEOs, to test the effectiveness of U.S. investor protections in improving the corporate governance of cross-listed firms. We find that firms from weak investor protection regimes that...

This paper develops and tests a model of how country characteristics, such as legal protections for minority investors and the level of economic and financial development, influence firms' costs and benefits in implementing measures to improve their own governance and transparency. We show that...

For many countries, the most significant barriers to trade in financial assets have been knocked down. Yet, the financial world is not flat because poor governance prevents firms from being widely held and from taking full advantage of financial globalization. Poor governance has implications...

This paper investigates how a foreign firm's decision to cross-list on a U.S. stock exchange is related to the consumption of private benefits of control by its controlling shareholders. Theory has proposed that when private benefits are high, controlling shareholders are less likely to choose...

We provide empirical evidence on how cross-border acquisitions from the perspective of an U.S. acquirer differ from domestic transactions, based on stock and operating performance measures. The distinction between domestic and cross-border acquisitions is a function of the change in market...

We examine post-takeover restructuring activity and the sources of gains in large U.S. targets of foreign acquirers. We find that layoffs and selloffs are less important in justifying the target premium in foreign takeovers than in domestic takeovers. In contrast, U.S. targets in foreign...

As domestic sources of outside finance are limited in many countries around the world, it is important to understand factors that influence whether foreign investors provide capital to a country's firms. We study 4,409 firms from 29 countries to assess whether and why concerns about corporate...