In the U.K., between 1955 and 1970, dual class shares quickly lost popularity without any regulatory intervention. The decline in the use of dual class shares was positively correlated with the relative valuations of one-share-one-vote and dual class firms, which in turn were related to media...

Casual observation suggests that capital allocation is often driven by favoritism and connections rather than by market mechanisms and information on future expected returns. We investigate when favoritism or markets emerge as an equilibrium outcome in the allocation of capital. We show that...

An intense debate on the use of limited-voting shares developed in the UK during the 1950s. Using a unique hand-collected dataset, we show that negative news coverage of limited-voting shares is associated with an increase in the relative price of voting and limited-voting shares (the voting...

Casual observation suggests that capital allocation is often driven by favouritism and connections rather than by market mechanisms and information on future expected returns. We investigate when favouritism or markets emerge as an equilibrium outcome in the allocation of capital. We show that...

Public outrage over executive compensation reached an all time high during the financial crisis. Around the world, many argued that CEOs and boards were immoral in setting their pay and pressured governments to impose restrictions on executive pay. Using a unique sample of data on human values...

This paper shows that the quality of laws, by affecting the cost of investment for outside investors, has an effect on risk sharing and, through it, on the availability of external finance to firms. If, because of high investment costs, the provision of finance to projects is concentrated in few...

This paper investigates the relation between financial development and firm size. The model shows that the quality of laws, by affecting the level of monitoring costs, has an effect on risk sharing and, through this channel, on the investor basis and the availability of external finance to...

We proxy for board members' opinions and values using directors' ancestral origins and show that diversity has costs and benefits, which lead to high performance volatility. Consistent with the idea that diverse groups experiment more, firms with ancestrally diverse boards have more numerous and...