Executive Stock Option Programs (SOPs) have become the dominant compensation instrument for top-management in recent years. The incentive effects of an SOP both with respect to corporate investment and financing decisions critically depend on the design of the SOP. A specific problem in...

Our study provides evidence on the share price reactions to the announcement of equity issues inGermany, where capital market is characterized by institutional features distinct from the U.S. market.German seasoned equity issues yield a positive market reaction which contrasts to the significant...

We propose an explanation for the "disappearing dividend" phenomenon: the decline in the information content of dividend announcements. This reduces the propensity of firms to pay or increase dividends, since dividends are costly.(...)

Recent work has suggested that strategic underperformance of debt-service obligations by equity holders can resolve the gap between observed yield spreads and those generated by Merton (1974)-style models.(...)

Im diesem Papier wird empirisch untersucht, wie firmen-spezifische und transaktionsspezifische Faktoren Änderungen in der industrieadjustierten operationellen Performance in der Zeit vor, während und nach Firmenzusammenschlüssen und Übernahmen beeinflussen. Es werde folgende Faktoren...

Topics on behavioral corporate finance are concerned with the consequences ofboundedly rational investors for optimal financial decisions by firm management. Aspects ofbounded rationality are relevant both for the theory and the practice of corporate finance. Onthe one hand, a new kind of...

We apply cumulative prospect theory and hedonic framing to evaluate discountreverse convertibles (DRCs) and reverse convertible bonds (RCBs) as important examples ofstructured products from a boundedly rational investor’s point of view. While commonexpected utility theory would also conclude...

Beschränkte Rationalitäten von Entscheidungsträgern werden im Rahmender Finanzierungstheorie zur Zeit vor allem im Hinblick auf die Erklärung von Preis-bildungsprozessen auf den Kapitalmärkten diskutiert. Weit seltener werden die Konsequenzenaus beschränkter Kapitalgeberrationalität für...

We examine a certain class of new financial instruments which are designed aslotteries on the outcome of prominent sports events like the Soccer World Cup 2006. We areable to explain why there might be a positive demand for such sports-related financialinstruments even if we take riskless...

This paper documents a relation between the shareholder base and payout policy. Consistentwith the idea that the shareholder base is related to the cost of external financing we find thatfirms with small shareholder bases have lower payout levels and maintain higher cash holdingsthan firms with...