This article represents a comprehensive review of the main financial literature consisting of the main studies in family businesses. Focusing on the agency theory, the review describes the main agency problems that arise between managers and owners, between managers and debt holders, and between...

We analyze the relation between comprehensive measures of board quality and the cost as well as the non-price terms of bank loans. We show that firms with higher quality boards and even a single (non-insider) advisory board member borrow at lower interest rates. This relation exists even after...

Multiple blockholder structures are a widespread phenomenon in the U.S. The theoretical literature, however, provides conflicting predictions on whether a single large blockholder or a set of dispersed smaller blockholders is better for firm value. Using U.S. data, we find a negative...

We investigate the role played by institutional development in the prevalence and value of family firms, while controlling for the potential effect of cultural norms. China provides a good research lab since it combines great heterogeneity in institutional development across the Chinese...

We review the theory and evidence on venture capital (VC) and other private equity: why professional private equity exists, what private equity managers do with their portfolio companies, what returns they earn, who earns more and why, what determines the design of contracts signed between (i)...

The shape of the yield curve determines the relationship between interest rate risk and return of investments. Should the longterm oriented investor or financier choose short- or long term bonds or loans? The management decision of the “right” maturity depends on three form-giving factors of...

In this paper I investigate the level of access of the opaque micro and small firms to finance. The objective of the paper is threefold: first to analyze how small and micro firms finance themselves, second to investigate what their financing preferences are and third to explore their opinions...

The main objective of this paper is to analyze whether deviations from the target capital structure affect firms' decisions to become acquirers. The analysis is conducted in two stages. In the first stage we estimate the target leverage ratio considering the main determinants of capital...

The purpose of this paper is to show that different methodologies may lead to different implications about the validity of the pecking order theory. Using data from Greek firms as a starting-point, the paper first investigates whether they follow the financing pattern implied by the pecking...

We examine the levels and determinants of cash in Latin America. Latin American firms, as opposed to U.S. firms, did not hoard cash during the 1995-2006 period. However, we find remarkable similarities with respect to the determinants of cash between U.S. and Latin American firms. Net working...