In 1997, France Télécom, the French telecommunications firm, went through a partial privatization. The government offered current and prior France Télécom employees the opportunity to buy portfolios of shares with various combinations of discounts, required holding periods, and levels of...

We analyse venture capital (VC) investments in 23 non-US countries and compare them to VC investments in the US. We describe how the contracts allocate cash flow, board, liquidation, and other control rights. In univariate analyses, contracts differ across legal regimes. At the same time,...

This paper deals with the problem of simultaneity between the firm's investments and financial structure, in a context of dynamic optimization, characterised by two main assumptions: first of all, diverging incentives for managers and shareholders, secondly, financial markets imperfections...

This study surveys the academic and professional literature examining the privatisation of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), with a focus on empirical studies. Privatisation has been instrumental in reducing state ownership in many countries and had a transforming effect on global stock markets,...

In a recent article, Huizinga, Laeven and Nicodème (2008) present a novel model that motivates an extensive empirical analysis of international debt shifting. We point out that the model fails to account for internal debt, and that once internal debt is properly accounted for, the external debt...

This paper critically surveys the key literature on corporate financing policy, capital structure and firm ownership in order to identify the leading theoretical and empirical issues in this area. The theoretical component of the survey attempts to reconcile competing theories of capital...

The close link between the personal financial affairs of a small business owner and his or her firm has been noted in prior research. This article compares attitudes toward risk on the part of small business owners (SBOs) and non-small business owners (NSBOs). In addition, it compares the...

We empirically examine a sample of over 350 entrepreneurial firms that successfully receive an SBA guaranteed loan. The first portion of the paper contains descriptive statistics that lend anecdotal evidence concerning the organization type of borrowers, the incidence of collateral, the reasons...

This paper investigates whether regulatory capital requirements play an important role in determining banks’ equity capital. We estimate equity capital regressions using panel data of a sample of 560 banks for 2004–2010. Our results suggest that regulatory capital requirements are not first...

In early 2005, the Brazilian Congress approved a new bankruptcy law. The new legislation increased creditor protection and improved the efficiency of the bankruptcy system. This paper evaluates the empirical consequences of a bankruptcy reform on a poorly developed credit market. Using data from...