We examine the nature of impact of national culture on bank leverage using a broad sample of 1,701 banks from 79 countries, over the period 2000-2013, i.e., 18,996 bank-year observations. We find that banks in countries with high individualism culture dimensions hold more leverage while, banks...

When larger market values of equity result in being subject to costly regulation, firms have incentives to shift their sources of financing toward debt and away from equity. We use the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) as a setting to provide evidence of such incentives. Smaller firms were...

When larger market values of equity result in being subject to costly regulation, firms have incentives to shift their sources of financing toward debt and away from equity. We use the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) as a setting to provide evidence of such incentives. Smaller firms were...

In this paper, we ask how firms’ optimal debt structure responds to a change in the bankruptcy regime. While existing work shows that this relationship is dependent on the ex-ante liquidation value of a firm, we demonstrate that the ownership of lenders they are connected to also matters. We...

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) is an exogenous shock to the information environment of firms listed in the U.S. Thus, firms might adjust their capital structures to reflect the new information environment. I examine SOX's effect on capital structure. Since SOX applies only to firms listed in the...

The present paper explores the link between bankruptcy law and firms' dynamics, focusing on Italy as a case study. Relying on a previous literature dealing with the concept of entrepreneurship “friendly” bankruptcy law, we stress the idea that bankruptcy institutions, although connected to a...

This paper examines the effect of ownership concentration on engagement in corporate environmental responsibility (CER) in time and spatial dimensions. The time dimension focuses on the macroeconomic environment, in particular, periods of rapid and moderate-speed economic growth. The spatial...

Many scholars have linked Corporate Governance (CG) and performance or CG, capital structure of banks or market structure. The decision to use the capital market or debt in order to obtain the necessary capital to finance firms' operations is a critical factor for the formulation of corporate...

Addressing the buildup of nonperforming loans (NPLs) in Italy since the global financial crisis will remain a challenge for some time and be important for supporting a sustained, robust economic recovery. The buildup reflects both the prolonged recession as well as structural factors that have...