We analyze dividends tax systems in the world and assess their impact on dividend distributions. Using data from 24 OECD countries, we find that the dividend payout is monotonically distributed across tax regimes as firms in classical tax system countries have significantly lower payouts and...

We find significant impact of insider trading activity on the long-run performance of IPOs. We show that, at the aggregate, insiders are net sellers in IPOs that generate positive long-run returns, while they are net buyers in those that underperform. When we analyse individual trades, we find...

We analyze the reasons why companies issue units when they raise additional capital. We find that, in contrast to previous evidence, units are not offered to mitigate the agency conflicts or to signal security mispricing as they are predominantly issued during cold periods, in public rather than...

In this paper we analyze the monitoring role of different types of shareholder groups in the UK. We relate the objectives, structure and overall share holding of each shareholder group to their incentives to monitor companies in which they hold large stakes. We find that shareholder groups are...

In this paper we examine the behaviour of share prices around the ex-dividend dates across four major European countries: France, Germany, Italy and the UK. We analyse the tax system and tax reforms in each country and test the hypothesis that if taxation is the sole determinant of ex-day...

Previous research shows that corporate insiders engage in profitable transactions by trading securities of their own firms around specific events. The objective of this study is to specifically analyse all the events that preceded insider trading transactions and their explicit trading gains. We...

The purpose of the paper is to test the hypothesis that board structure and its impact on value is a function of firm's growth opportunities. Consistent with this hypothesis, the results show that, while low growth firms are less likely to have an independent board, i.e., to split the roles of...

In this paper we analyze the trading patterns of a large number of institutional investors in the UK. We expect these investors to time their trades and the buy (sell) trades to lead to positive (negative) post-event returns. On average, share prices increase significantly on the announcement of...