This paper examines the investment and financial decisions of a sample of 92 EU regulated utilities, taking into account key institutional features of EU public utilities, such as: a) regulation by agencies with various degrees of independence; b) partial ownership of the state in the regulated...

We compare how bond market access affects firms' investment decisions in the United States and the euro area. Having a bond rating enables US corporations to invest more and undertake more acquisitions. In contrast, in the euro area, bond ratings have no effect on investment decisions....

This paper explores the hypothesis that the rise in intangible capital is a fundamental driver of the secular trend in US corporate cash holdings over the last decades. Using a new measure, we show that intangible capital is the most important firm-level determinant of corporate cash holdings....

Prior research shows that Dodd-Frank Act's regulations on credit rating agencies (CRAs) increase rated firms' risk of rating downgrades, regardless of their credit quality (see Dimitrov, Palia and Tang (2015)). Our difference-in-differences estimates suggest that after Dodd-Frank, low-rated...

This paper explores the connection between rising intangible capital and the secular upward trend in US corporate cash holdings. We calibrate a dynamic model with two productive assets, tangible and intangible capital, to highlight the following points: 1) since only tangible capital can be...

This article provides a comprehensive assessment of private firms' financing sources and their relation with financial reporting practices. We consider debt financing (bank financing, leasing, and government guarantees), equity financing (family ownership, government ownership, employee...

This article provides a comprehensive assessment of private firms' financing sources and their relation with financial reporting practices. We consider debt financing (bank financing, leasing, and government guarantees), equity financing (family ownership, government ownership, employee...

Over the past two years, millions of new private investors have entered the stockmarkets in Russia and the USA, but their number in the Russian Federation issignificantly overestimated. In both markets, private investors face the risks of gettinginvolved in speculative transactions. The Russian...

Building on recent developments in behavioral asset pricing, we develop a model in which an increase in the dispersion of investor beliefs under short-selling constraints predicts a bubble, or a rise in a stock's price above its fundamental value. Our model predicts that managers respond to...