We survey CFOs from 36 countries to examine whether and why firms altered their risk management policies when fair value reporting standards for derivatives were introduced. A substantial fraction of firms (42%) state that their risk management policies have been materially affected by fair...

We use variation in corruption convictions across judicial districts in the United States to examine the relationship between political corruption and risk-taking of public firms. Firms headquartered in regions with high levels of political corruption have lower total risk and lower...

This paper investigates the determinants of corporate risk taking. Shareholders with substantial equity ownership in a single company may advocate conservative investment policies due to greater exposure to firm risk. Using a large cross-country sample, I find a positive relationship between...

This study evaluates infrastructure investment and finance in Asia from a global perspective. It provides an overview on infrastructure needs and the various sources of private finance, globally and within Asia, and creates a "bigger picture" for the demand and supply of capital for...

The recovery in private business investment globally remains extremely weak more than seven years after the financial crisis. This paper contributes to the ongoing policy debate on the factors behind this weakness by analyzing the role of growth prospects and uncertainty in explaining...

We investigate the determinants of firms' implicit insurance to employees, using a difference-indifference approach: we rely on differences between family and non-family firms to identify the supply of insurance, and exploit variation in unemployment insurance across and within countries to...

Ensuring that a firm has sufficient liquidity to finance valuable projects that occur in the future is at the heart of the practice of financial management. Yet, while discussion of these issues goes back at least to Keynes (1936), a substantial literature on the ways in which firms manage...

We use a survey approach to learn about valuation professionals' choices and implementations of valuation techniques in practice. The survey design allows us to control for a respondent's professional subgroup (e.g., consulting), education, experience, and valuation purpose characteristics. We...

In establishing the foundation of their investment process, global equity investors typically adopt a framework along geographic and/or industry dimensions. The chosen framework is then applied to the whole investment process including alpha generation, portfolio construction, and risk...

Using a sample of control cross-border acquisitions from 61 countries from 1990 to 2007, we find that acquirers from countries with better governance gain more from such acquisitions and their gains are higher when targets are from countries with worse governance. Other acquirer country...