In this paper, using a unique dataset of joint-stock companies, we empirically examine the determinants of the choice and size of the collective executive board, a core element of the multi-tier board system of Russian firms. Our empirical evidence strongly suggests that the need of company...

Mexico is retrogressing, becoming an unpredictable and risky jurisdiction for the adjudication of legitimate claims involving domestic and international lenders and investors. This conclusion follows from an analysis of the precedent-setting corporate workout involving a major Mexican...

This paper focuses on the speculative nature of the stock market in Romania, emphasizing the basic rules and risks associated with stock transactions. On the one hand, the speculative nature may be considered as a mandatory feature of the stock market, for the purposes of supporting a fair and...

Purpose – The effectiveness of corporate governance enforcement is a complex issue requiring the understanding of the role of institutional factors. The latter may or may not converge towards best practices, depending upon the extent to which history and politics matter more than purely...

Purpose – Legislators legislate, but how feasible and effective the implementation and enforcement of these laws are and how congruent with the countries characteristics, is under doubt. The paper seeks to argue that the Greek law on corporate governance (CG) had no effect on the fundamental...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) on a number of governance and governance-related characteristics, such as board structure and committee composition, as well as the effect of those changes (if any) on both accounting...

Regulators and shareholders are calling for independent directors. Independent directors, however, have numerous external professional commitments. Using  To- bin’s Q as an approximation  of market valuation and controlling for endogeneity, our empirical analysis reveals that neither...

In this paper, we re-evaluate the hypothesis that the introduction of the IFRS has an impact on the timeliness of loss recognition. We test this hypothesis in a data set of public German firms that report according to German-GAAP and IFRS, respectively. The parallel use of the two accounting...

This article provides a brief overview of AIG's operations and explains why AIG suddenly collapsed. It then details the terms of the initial US government bailout and later restructurings. Finally, the article describes the regulatory gap exploited by AIG and ensuing regulatory reform.

Pyramidal groups, in Italy and elsewhere, represent a model of separation of ownership and control. Pyramids typically have blockholders which extract private benefits of control at the expenses of minority shareholder. This paper focuses on the Italian case where the number of pyramids is...