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...

This study examines whether and how anticorruption efforts may mitigate the risk of corporate fraud. Based on a sample of Chinese publicly listed firms over the period of 2008 to 2017, we find that anticorruption efforts reduce the likelihood of fraud commission and increase the likelihood of...

We study the simultaneous choice of investment, debt financing and liquidity for a large sample of US corporates between 1980 and 2014. We partition the sample according to the firms' financial constraints and their needs to hedge against future shortfalls in operating income. In contrast to...

The current literature on firm ownership around the world shows that concentrated ownership with only one or a few controlling owners is common, especially in many European and Asian countries. The dispersed ownership has proven to be uncommon and even countries with supposed dispersed ownership...

Around the world (with the U.S. and U.K. as exceptions) concentrated ownership structures and controlling shareholders are predominant even among listed firms. We provide novel empirical evidence how such controlling shareholders, in particular founding families, affect payout policy decisions....

Arguments for costs of capital requirements in the long run are based on trade-off theories of capital structure. This paper provides a critical assessment of these theories by studying how the optimal capital structure can be modified, when a firm uses the financial markets to alter its cash...

This paper analyzes the governance and performance of firms which, according to simplistic agency theory, should not be viable. These firms are fully or partially owned by a foundation which itself is not owned by natural or legal persons. Therefore, residual claimholders have restricted or no...

Private equity companies have become a major force in the economic landscape. Financial- and operational-engineering are innovative characteristics of this emerging method of finance. The existing empirical data provide strong evidence that private equity activity contribute positively to the...

This paper investigates short-term effects of big tech start-up acquisitions on innovation empirically. Innovation research has found a strong positive, causal relationship between VC investment and innovation. Using this insight, we can explore the repercussions of big tech start-up...

A well-known strategy of tax avoidance by multinationals is to locate debt in subsidiaries in countries with a high tax rate. In case of M&As it is particularly advantageous to locate debt at the level of holdings. By using firm-level data provided by the German Central Bank, I show empirically...