This paper examines the effect of ownership structure of a controlling shareholder on the financial constraints of non-financial firms in 22 economies for the 1982-2009 period. We find that the overinvestment propensity of a controlling shareholder becomes less severe with an increase in...

Over the last decade, the availability of credit default swaps (CDS) has dramatically transformed the markets for credit insurance by providing participants efficient avenues through which to share credit risks. These risk-sharing benefits notwithstanding, the growth of credit default swaps...

This article analyzes the manifold situations in which the efficient-market hypothesis (EMH) has influenced — or has failed to influence — federal securities regulation and state corporate law, and the prospective roles for the EMH in these contexts. In federal securities regulation, the EMH...

Financial strategy is about how companies raise funds and manage them within their organizations. Corporate governance is relevant to both of these aspects, and an understanding of corporate governance is vital for an appreciation of corporate finance. This chapter from Corporate Financial...

We present the puzzling evidence that, from 1962 to 2009, an average 10.2% of large public nonfinancial US firms have zero debt and almost 22% have less than 5% book leverage ratio. Zero-leverage behavior is a persistent phenomenon. Dividend-paying zero-leverage firms pay substantially higher...

If there is an economically important optimal capital structure, then firms that deviate too far from the optimum will face greater risk of failure or acquisition. Using data from the oil industry we find no significant evidence that capital structure policy affects acquisition or failure...

There is strong empirical evidence supporting capital structure targeting, dividend policy targeting, and the existence of dividend clienteles. If these features are understood to enhance firm value, subject to manager preferences, then this evidence also advances the notion that financial...

We examine the relation between accounting conservatism and creditor recovery rates for firms in default. We also test the link between conservatism and the length of distress resolution proceedings. We find creditors of firms with more conservative accounting prior to default have significantly...

In the bank-borrower setting, a firm's existing lender may exploit its positional advantage to extract rents from the firm in subsequent financings. Analogously, a startup's existing venture capital investors (VCs) may dilute the founder through a follow-on financing from these same VCs (an...

In a typical "phoenix syndrome" scenario, a small business entrepreneur who controls the financially distressed Company A registers Company B, to which the assets of Company A are transferred in what appears to be fraudulent conveyance. Company B serves as a vehicle through which the business is...