The past decade has seen significant changes in the structure of the corporate lending market, with non-commercial bank institutional investors playing larger roles than they historically have played. In addition, non-commercial bank institutional lenders are often equity holders in their...

An increasing fraction of firms worldwide operate in multiple countries. We study the costs and benefits of being multinational in firms' corporate financial decisions and survey the related academic evidence. We document that, among U.S. publicly traded firms, the prevalence of multinationals...

Product price risk is a potentially important factor for firms' liquidity management. A natural place to evaluate the impact of this risk on liquidity management is the electricity industry, since producing firms face substantial price volatility in wholesale markets. Empirically, higher...

We evaluate the performance of limited partners' (LPs) private equity investments over time. Using a sample of 14,380 investments by 1,852 LPs in 1,250 buyout and venture funds started between 1991 and 2006, we find that the superior performance of endowment investors in the 1991-1998 period,...

We analyze a unique database from a sample of real-world boardrooms — minutes of board meetings and board-committee meetings of eleven business companies for which the Israeli government holds a substantial equity interest. We use these data to evaluate the underlying assumptions and...

In public-policy discussions about corporate disclosure, more is typically judged to be better than less. In particular, better disclosure is seen as a way to reduce the agency problems that plague firms. We show that this view is incomplete. In particular, our theoretical analysis shows that...

In light of recent corporate scandals, numerous proposals have been introduced for reforming corporate governance. This paper provides a theoretical framework through which to evaluate these reforms. Unlike various ad hoc arguments, this framework recognizes that governance structures arise...

A fundamental issue in governance research is how boards can be chosen through a process partially controlled by the CEO but yet can still be somewhat effective in monitoring the CEO. We offer an answer based on a model in which board effectiveness is a function of the board's independence....

In public-policy discussions about corporate disclosure, more is typically judged better than less. In particular, better disclosure is seen as a way to reduce the agency problems that plague firms. We show that this view is incomplete. In particular, our theoretical analysis shows that...

Lifetime incomes of private equity general partners are affected by their current funds' performance through both carried interest profit sharing provisions, and also by the effect of the current fund's performance on general partners' abilities to raise capital for future funds. We present a...