This paper examines the potential for external conflicts in large, diversified business groups. On one hand, these groups are highly visible, facilitating the detection of opportunistic actions. Accordingly, reputation concerns should effectively constrain group behavior. On the other hand,...

This paper examines the potential for external conflicts in large, diversified business groups. On one hand, these groups are highly visible, facilitating the detection of opportunistic actions. Accordingly, reputation concerns should effectively constrain group behavior. On the other hand,...

We present empirical evidence on the relative profitability, leverage, and labor intensity of government-owned and privately-owned firms. Cross-sectional analysis of a sample of very large firms indicates that those owned by governments are significantly less profitable than those held...

We compare dividend policies of U.S. and Japanese firms, partitioning the Japanese data into keiretsu, independent, and hybrid firms. We examine the correlation between dividend changes and stock returns, and the reluctance to change dividends. Results are consistent with the joint hypotheses...

Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) manage investment portfolios on behalf of governments that own the portfolios. We analyze the impact of SWF investments on the values of the companies in which they invest and provide evidence consistent with the tradeoff between the monitoring and lobbying benefits...

We examine how euro conversion affected trading costs and volume in European equity markets. Euro conversion immediately changed tick sizes and price transparency, both of which could affect trading costs and relative trading volume. Longer-run, conversion could boost competition among...

One dimension of competition among stock exchanges is the quality of products they have to offer. In order to attract listings and trading volume, exchanges can affect the quality of their listed firms by altering their standards for firm disclosure and governance. We identify a competition with...