This essay on Corporations is a chapter in an upcoming volume on economic theology edited by Stefan Schwarzkopf.The secular study of corporations has long regularly focused on three sets of concerns: (1) Is the idea of corporate “personhood” only a convenient shorthand for a complex set of...

This paper deals with the measurement of motives for foreign direct investment (FDI). Due to a lack of information, several indirect measures exist in order to classify multinational firms into the two main types of FDI. While vertical foreign direct investment (VFDI) refers to the international...

In our analysis, we consider the distribution of decision power over financing and investment between MNEs’ headquarters and foreign subsidiaries and its influence on the foreign affiliates’ financial restrictions. Our research results show that headquarters of multinational enterprises have...

This short technical report provides an empirical analysis of the level of institutional block ownership overall, and of foreign block ownership, at a broad set of publicly traded corporations. Disclosed institutional blockholders of every company in the Standard & Poor's 500 index are analyzed,...

Germany's repeal of the corporate capital gains tax for the disposal of domestic holdings was expected to substantially change the system of corporate network holdings and corporate control. Based on a general divestiture model, we show that the probability of a disposal increased after the tax...

Prior literature shows that choices regarding board composition are associated with earnings management. We add to this literature by examining the effects of the presence of a foreign board member on earnings management. Using a sample of 3,249 firm-year observations representing 586...

We study the role of pyramidal ownership structures in the creation of new firms. Our results suggest that pyramids arise because they provide a financing advantage in setting up new firms when the pledgeability of cash flows to outside financiers is limited. Parent companies supply inside funds...

We investigate how investor protection (IP) affects target selection when a firm decides to enter a foreign market through an acquisition. A law and finance model shows the acquirer prefers better-performing firms when the target country has weaker IP than its home country. This cherry picking...

Internationalisation of Russian companies has become a distinctive phenomenon and has drawn attention of scholars, practitioners and policy-makers alike. Newly emerged Russian companies have extended their presence from the nearest former Soviet republics to the advanced markets of Western...

This paper uses a discrete choice framework to analyze state design and firm choice of the implications of incorporation: corporate governance laws, corporate taxes and court features. Firms --- differentiated by ownership, management, industry concentration, financial profile and unobservable...