Using aggregate data from national accounts, we study whether strengthening and harmonizing securities regulation across the European Union increases household equity ownership. We find a significant increase in the proportion of liquid assets invested in equity, both when a household's own...

We examine the capital market consequences of a regulatory intervention aimed at generalizing tenure voting in French public companies. The 2014 Florange Act departs from the ‘one share one vote' principle by automatically granting double voting rights (DVR) to shares held for at least two...

Most international stock exchanges distinguish solely between domestic and foreign issuers, whereas in Germany, issuers can choose between two market segments with diverse transparency levels: the Prime Standard and Non-Prime Standard segment. Transparency requirements for the Non-Prime Standard...

This paper analyses the performance consequences of board structure changes in Ghana for the study period 2000 to 2009. We predict that board structure changes prompted by the introduction of the Ghanaian Code in 2003 should lead to better firm performance. The results show that duality...

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...

This paper analyzes why corporate governance matters for stock returns if the stock market prices the underlying managerial agency problem correctly. Our theory assumes that strict corporate governance prevents managers from diverting cash flows, but reduces incentives for managerial effort. In...

This paper proposes a theoretical model that incorporates corporate governance into the basic CAPM, where corporate governance affects the disutility of managerial effort and the possibility of managers to divert company resources. It shows that corporate governance affects firms’ stock...

This paper proposes a theoretical model that incorporates corporate governance into the basic CAPM, where corporate governance affects the disutility of managerial effort and the possibility of managers to divert company resources. It shows that corporate governance affects firms’ stock...

When companies raise equity finance they have to make two choices: the issuing method (cash versus rights) and, when they choose the rights issue method, whether rights should be traded or not. We study these choices using a sample of 15,751 rights issues and 22,016 cash offers announced during...