We review the theory and evidence on venture capital (VC) and other private equity: why professional private equity exists, what private equity managers do with their portfolio companies, what returns they earn, who earns more and why, what determines the design of contracts signed between (i)...

This paper investigates cash holding behaviour of firms from France, Germany, Japan, the UK and the US using data for 4,069 companies over the period 1996-2000. Our focus is particularly on the relation between cash holdings and leverage. We argue that the impact of leverage on cash balances of...

Using a cross-country sample, we examine the CEO tournament structure (measured alternatively as the ratio and the difference of pay between the CEO and other top executives within a firm). We find the tournament structure to vary systematically with firm and country cultural characteristics. In...

This study uses firm level survey data to assess whether the capital structure theory is portable to small firms in developing countries and whether country characteristics play a role in their financing decisions. Using a sample of both small companies and large firms from 24 developing...

Corporate governance (CG) is often split among rule and principlebased methods to regulation in distinctive institutional contexts. Relying on an alternative theoretical framework (i.e. institutional theory), rather than the dominant agency theory, this study conceptualizes corporate governance...

Using a cross-country sample, we examine the CEO tournament structure (measured alternatively as the ratio and the difference of pay between the CEO and other top executives within a firm). We find the tournament structure to vary systematically with firm and country cultural characteristics. In...

The issue of appropriate corporate governance framework has been a focal point of recent reforms in many countries. This study provides a comprehensive comparative analysis of corporate governance regulatory systems and their evolution over the last 15 years in 30 European countries and the US....

From 1990 to 2011, the share of the world's initial public offering (IPO) activity outside the U.S. increased with financial globalization. In the 1990s, when financial globalization was lower, there were 0.37 U.S. IPOs for each non-U.S. IPO compared to only 0.12 in the 2000s. Consistent with...