A detailed treatment of aggregation and capital heterogeneity substantially improves the performance of the investment CAPM. Firm-level predicted returns are constructed from firm-level accounting variables and aggregated to the portfolio level to match with portfolio-level stock returns....

This paper examines the effect of accounting conservatism on firm-level investment during the 2007-2008 global financial crisis. Using a differences-in-differences design, we find that firms with less conservative financial reporting experienced a sharper decline in investment activity following...

We use a dynamic model of cash management in which firms face competitive pressure to show that competition increases corporate cash holdings as well as the frequency and size of equity issues. In our model, these effects are driven by small, financially constrained firms, in contrast with the...

We develop a dynamic model of corporate investment and financing decisions in which corporate insiders have superior information about the firm's growth prospects. We show that firms with positive private information can credibly signal their type to outside investors using the timing of...

In this paper we explain the apparent ''diversification discount'' of conglomerates without assuming inefficient-cross subsidisation through internal capital markets. Instead we assume that an internal capital market efficiently redistributes scare resources across a conglomerate's divisions...

For the valuation of a company it is necessary to take the income tax of its owners into account. When looking at a squeeze-out with investors who have different wealth this implies that fair compensation payments will be different. This is in contradiction to the German Stock Companies Act. In...

The Benefit and Cost of Winner Picking: Redistribution Vs Incentives

Business groups in emerging markets perform better than unaffiliated firms. One explanation is that business groups substitute some functions of missing institutions, for example, enforcing contracts. We investigate this by setting up a model where firms within the business group are connected...

Our research tests the difference in investment efficiency between state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and private firms and then evaluates the effect of privatisation and equitisation policies on the investment efficiency of former state owned enterprises (SOEs). We use a novel dataset from Viet Nam...

After the end of communism enterprises in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) were marked by low levels of labor productivity, mainly because of too high employment levels. According to economic theory, the corporate capital structure can be an important element in the restructuring process. But...