In this paper, we analyse whether bank owners or bank managers were the driving force behind the risks incurred in the wake of the financial crisis of 2007/2008. We show that owner controlled banks had higher profits in the years before the crisis, and incurred larger losses and were more likely...

Securitization is a financial innovation that experiences a boom-bust cycle, as many other innovations before. This paper analyzes possible reasons for the breakdown of primary and secondary securitization markets, and argues that misaligned incentives along the value chain are the primary cause...

The recent financial crisis has led to a vigorous debate about the pros and cons of fair-value accounting (FVA). This debate presents a major challenge for FVA going forward and standard setters' push to extend FVA into other areas. In this article, we highlight four important issues as an...

This paper provides a quantitative review of the empirical literature on the tax impact on corporate debt financing. Synthesizing the evidence from 46 previous studies, we find that this impact is substantial. In particular, the tax rate proxy determines the outcome of primary analyses. Measures...

To gain insights about the quality of board's firing decisions, we investigate abnormal stock returns and operating performance around CEO-turnover announcements in a new hand- collected sample of 208 “clean” turnover events between January 1998 and June 2009. Unlike the majority of previous...

This paper provides an overview of the antecedents, main drivers and spillover mechanisms of the turbulence emanating from the US sub-prime credit market in the summer of 2007. Its primary goal is to discuss the facts and interrelationships featured in the various analyses and statistics in a...

What legal, political and economic institutions are shaping privatisations processes in the world? This paper addresses the issue presenting new evidence for a sample of 49 countries. From an empirical analysis for the period 1977-1996, the decision to privatise appears to be related to...

This paper sheds some light about privatisation in utilities. An empirical analysis based on sales in the electricity sector in 38 countries for the period 1977-97 shows that regulation is a crucial institutional variable in privatisation. Not only does it allow governments to increase the pace...

We argue that in an unreliable enforcement regime, transactions tend to become intermediated through institutions or concentrated among agents bound by some form of private enforcement. Provision of funding shifts from risk capital to debt, and from markets to institutions with long term...

This paper provides an empirical analysis of GovernmentsÕ decisions to sell privatised companies on both international and domestic markets in a sample of 392 privatisations in 42 countries in the 1977-1998 period. Political theories of privatisation find strong support in our analyses: market...