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....

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...

This paper sheds new light on the assessment of firm networks via multiple directorships in terms of corporate firm performance. Using a large sample of European listed firms in the period from 2003 to 2011 and system GMM we find a significant compensation effect on corporate firm performance...

This paper develops a model where firms' equilibrium capital structures depend on firms' risk characteristics and investors' aggregate risk appetite. I assume that the law of one price fails because security markets are incomplete and risk-sharing through short-selling or borrowing is limited....

This paper analyses the role that institutional factors play in explaining differences in the capital structure of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across regions belonging to a single country. Specifically, it studies the effect of the development of the financial sector and of the...

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...

ORBIS is a global database and financial analysis tool offering company statements, ownership, rating and scores, news and intelligence. Global means the current coverage exceeds 165 million entities which most of them are private companies. However also listed companies, banks (over 35.000),...

This research is designed to examine the relationship between the capital structure and profitability of non-financial firms in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the period of ten years, from 2003-2012. The goal is to prove the existence of the relationship between the firm's capital structure...

During the 20th century all economic structures underwent the impact of two epochal phenomena, the communications revolution and the financialization of economy. As a consequence of the never ending technological progress, the first has repeatedly reduced the friction of distance, provoking a...