Using new data for the universe of firms covered in Amadeus, we reconstruct the portfolios of shareholders who hold equity stakes in private and publicly-traded European firms. We find great heterogeneity in the degree of portfolio diversification across large shareholders. Exploiting this...

We use nearly 500 shifts in statutory corporate and personal income tax rates as natural experiments to assess the effect of corporate and personal taxes on capital structure. We find both corporate and personal income taxes to be significant determinants of capital structure. Based on ex-post...

We study the change in government control of privatized firms in OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries. At the end of 2000, after the largest privatization wave in history, governments retained control of 62.4% of privatized firms. In civil law countries,...

Evidence from firms in 47 countries shows that companies with political connections have higher leverage and higher market shares, but they underperform compared to non-connected companies on an accounting basis. Differences between connected and unconnected firms are more pronounced when...