The main result of the quick reactions of the Federal Reserve (the Fed) and the European Central Bank (ECB) to the Covid-19 crisis are that more than 20% of their public debt is now held by these central banks and that the balance sheet of the ECB is now near 50% of GDP (33% for the Fed). Two...

This study is aiming to present (and to a certain extent analyse) the provisions of Articles 24-30 of Directive 2014/65/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 May 2014 “on markets in financial instruments (…)” (‘MiFID II') – including the relevant provisions of the...

This paper investigates the empirical determinants of corporate cash holdings in the euro area as a function of firm size. The results show that there are significant differences in investment in liquid assets for firms of different size. More specifically, liquid assets for smaller firms in the...

The shape of the yield curve determines the relationship between interest rate risk and return of investments. Should the longterm oriented investor or financier choose short- or long term bonds or loans? The management decision of the “right” maturity depends on three form-giving factors of...

This paper focuses on how the European Central Bank's (ECB) monetary policies influenced non-financial firms. The paper's two main contributions are, first, to shed light on non-financial firms' decisions on leverage, and how the ECB's conventional and unconventional policies may have affected...

Recent studies have debated the impact of investor protection law on corporate behavior and value. I exploit the staggered passage of state securities fraud statutes (“blue sky laws”) in the United States to estimate the causal effects of investor protection law on firm financing decisions...

We reinvestigate the question of whether corporate investment during the financial crisis depended to a significant extent, and differently than in the pre-crisis period, on firms' short-term liquidity and indebtedness. Using data on listed firms in the euro area and the United Kingdom, we...

This paper empirically examines the post-merger performance of a sample of 1,320 European mergers and acquisitions deals. Specifically, we investigate the impact of pre-merger earnings management of acquirers on both the short-term and long-term post-merger performance, for M&A deals completed...

We use a very large sample of European private and public firms to show that financial flexibility attained through a conservative leverage policy is more important for private, small-medium-sized, and young firms and for firms in countries with less access to credit and weaker investor...

We survey 356 valuation experts across 10 European countries with CFA or equivalent designation to gain some insights into their valuation practices. We find that while most experts use both Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) and Relative Valuation (RV) models, their assumptions and estimation methods...