This survey reviews the literature on the political economy of financial structure, broadly defined to include the size of capital markets and banking systems as well as the distribution of access to external finance across firms.The theoretical literature on the institutional basis for...

This paper examines the origins of investor protection under the common law by analysing the development of shareholder protection in Victorian Britain, the home of the common law. In this era, very little was codified, with corporate law simply suggesting a default template of rules....

This paper examines the origins of investor protection under the common law by analysing the development of shareholder protection in Victorian Britain, the home of the common law. In this era, very little was codified, with corporate law simply suggesting a default template of rules....

In the last dozen years, economists have produced a considerable body of research suggesting that the historical origin of a country’s laws is highly correlated with a broad range of its legal rules and regulations, as well as with economic outcomes. Much of this research has dealt with rules...

Corwin v. KKR, one of many recent cases aiming to mitigate the “deal tax” in M&A represented by baseless litigation, is considered one of the most important corporate law decisions of the 2000s. Corwin shields directors from the enhanced scrutiny of Revlon in favor of the business judgment...

Mandatory pension contributions (MCs) are negative shocks to a firm's liquidity that can unfavorably impact its cost of capital, financing, and investment plans. We study whether firms faced with MCs use both non-cash (NEM) and cash generating earnings management (CEM) to partly offset their...

This paper studies the capital allocation decisions of firms that are comparable except for ownership under a unique setting using investment level data. We find allocative inefficiency across ownership to be exacerbated under policy distortions through subsidized credits targeted at state-owned...

We study the impact of country-level accounting conservatism on international IPO underpricing. Examining 13,285 IPOs from 36 countries, we find that IPOs are underpriced less in countries where existing public firms practice more accounting conservatism. The link between conservatism and...

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...

We examine the relation between corporate governance and ownership structure, focusing on the role of institutional investors. In many countries, institutional investors have become dominant players in the financial markets. We discuss the theoretical basis for, history of, and empirical...