The question of whether the CEO should also serve as chairman of the board is one of themost hotly debated issues in the recent corporate governance discussion. While agencytheoreticarguments advocate a separation of decision and control functions, the empiricalevidence focusing on U.S....

I use a survey methodology to obtain consensus ratings of 64 Swiss company names. The survey evidence suggests that simple cognitive company name characteristics do affect the buy and sell decision of respondents. Furthermore, I find that respondents attribute positive stock performance rather...

This paper provides empirical evidence in favor of the hypothesis thatthe secular price increase in the 16th century is mainly caused by money supplydevelopments as the discovery of new mines in Latin America. First we reviewprice developments for several European countries over the 16th century...

This is the first empirical paper investigating a comprehensive sample of listed(i.e. publicly traded) private equity companies, covering 287 companies in thetime period 1986 to 2003. After imposing liquidity constraints, and aftercorrecting for non-surviving vehicles, we get a sample of 114...

The past decades witnessed a broad trend towards flatter organizations with less hierarchical layers. A reduction of the number of management levels in a corpora- tion can have both positive and negative effects on firm performance with the net effect being theoretically unclear ex ante. The...

We use a dynamic adjustment model and panel methodology to investigatethe determinants of a time- varying optimal capital structure. Because firmsmay temporarily deviate from their optimal capital structure in the presenceof adjustment costs, we also endogenize the adjustment process. In partic...

This paper analyzes the determinants of the German corporate governance ratingrecently developed by Drobetz, Schillhofer, and Zimmermann (2004). We find anon- linear relationship between ownership concentration and the quality of firmlevelcorporate governance as measured by the rating. Firms...

Das vorliegende Papier präsentiert das Konzept der Verbriefung von Versicherungsrisiken(insurance-linked securities) anhand von Catastrophe Bonds. Ineinem ersten Teil wird das traditionelle Versicherungsgeschäft vorgestellt undauf dessen Hauptproblematiken eingegangen. In einem zweiten Teil...