Companies that go public on global stock markets are not obliged to disclose earnings forecasts in their prospectuses. We use this fact to examine the shipping sector, where most firms issue earnings forecasts during the IPO process, and provide unique, international-level evidence. We find...

We use a dynamic adjustment model and panel methodology to investigate the determinants of a time- varying optimal capital structure. Because firms may temporarily deviate from their optimal capital structure in the presence of adjustment costs, we also endogenize the adjustment process. In...

It is often argued that Black-Scholes (1973) values overstate the subjective value of stock options granted to risk-averse and under-diversified executives. We construct a “representative” Swiss executive and extend the certainty- equivalence approach presented by Hall and Murphy (2002) to...

We use a dynamic framework and panel methodology to investigate the determinants of a firms' time-varying capital structure. Our sample comprises 706 European firms from France, Germany, Italy and the U.K. over the period from 1983 to 2002. If capital structure adjustment is costly, firms may...

This paper investigates the determinants of a broad sample of Swiss non-financial firms' cash holdings between 1995 and 2004. The median Swiss firm holds almost twice as much cash and cash equivalents as the median U.S. or U.K. firm. Our results indicate that asset tangibility and firm size are...

What role does the selection of an investor and the timing of financing play in initial coin offerings (ICOs)? We investigate the operating and financial performance of ventures conducting ICOs with different types of investors at different points in the ventures' life cycle. We find that,...

We test leverage predictions of the trade-off and pecking order models usingSwiss data. At an aggregate level, leverage of Swiss firms is comparativelylow, but the results depend crucially on the exact definition of leverage.Confirming the pecking order model but contradicting the trade-off...

It is often argued that Black-Scholes (1973) values overstate the subjective value of stock options granted to risk-averse and under-diversified executives. We construct a "representative" Swiss executive and extend the certainty-equivalence approach presented by Hall and Murphy (2002) to assess...