When-issued trading concerns transactions in securities that have not yet been issued. This type of trade often takes place in a so-called ‘grey market’, in which all contracts are conditional on the issuance of the security. In this paper, we investigate the Dutch grey market for...

IPOs on the EuroNMs have shown very high underpricing.The majority of these IPOs possess specific characteristics such as lock-up agreements, venture-capital financing, ownership by the underwriter and over-allotment options.We study how these characteristics influence the underpricing of firms...

This paper analyses the control of Belgian listed companies. The analysis reveals that control of listed companies in Belgium is highly concentrated. Business groups, holding companies, and voting pacts, play an important role in bringing about this concentration. The main characteristics of the...

This study has analysed the share price reactions to changes in top management.A distinction was made among different types of CEO turnover: forced resignation, voluntary departures and age-related retirements.The announcement of a forced CEO resignation is hailed favourably by the market with a...

This paper reopens the debate on the substitutability of dividends and shareholder control in mitigating free cash flow concerns, by examining dividend behavior when shareholder control is restricted in the firm.We consider the stakeholder-oriented governance regime of the Netherlands, where...

Abstract: We investigate the roles of legal origins and political institutions – believed to be the fundamental determinants of economic outcomes – in corporate social responsibility (CSR). We argue that CSR is an essential path to economic sustainability, and document strong correlations...

As institutional investors are the largest shareholders in most listed UK firms, one expects them to monitor the firms they invest in. However, there is mounting empirical evidence which suggests that they do not perform any monitoring. This paper provides a new test on whether UK institutional...

This paper examines the payout policies of UK firms listed on the London Stock Exchange during the 1990s.It complements the existing literature by analyzing the trends in both dividends and total payouts (including share repurchases).In a dynamic panel data regression setting, we relate target...

Abstract: This paper presents the main reasons why public-private partnerships (PPPs) are adopted as well as the possible disadvantages for the public and private sectors. By means of two case studies on bridge construction and railway infrastructure (Fertagus and Lusoponte), we elucidate how a...

Abstract: Little is known about how different bonus schemes affect traders’ propensity to trade and which bonus schemes improve traders’ performance. We study the effects of linear versus threshold (convex) bonus schemes on traders’ behavior. Traders purchase and sell shares in an...