We evaluate the impact of government ownership on the issuer and individual ratings of a sample of 224 large European banks over the 1999-2004 period. Individual ratings differ from traditional ones in that they focus on banks' economic and financial conditions and do not take into account any...

In this paper we analyze the factors that influence the target companies' choice of a bank advisor during a merger or acquisition process. Particularly we analyze the choice of hiring an advisor in the first place (non trivial since for more than one third of the mergers in our sample the target...

In this paper, we analyze the effect of search costs on mutual fund fee dispersion. Using a heteroscedastic regression model, we can quantify the portion of the expense ratio (net of 12b-1 fees) not justified by the quality of the service provided, the cost structure of the investment company or...

Do bond investors price hidden information? This paper addresses this question by using a heteroscedastic regression model to empirically examine the factors affecting the spread dispersion unexplained by easy-to-observe issue characteristics (credit ratings, size, maturity, etc.). First,...

We compare the performance and risk of a sample of 181 large banks from 15 European countries over the 1999-2004 period and evaluate the impact of alternative ownership models, together with the degree of ownership concentration, on their profitability, cost efficiency and risk. Three main...

We evaluate the impact of government ownership on the issuer and individual ratings of a sample of 224 large European banks over the 1999-2004 period. Individual ratings differ from traditional ones in that they focus on banks' economic and financial conditions and do not take into account any...