The legal environment is one important determinant of corporate governance. However, within legal families, also cultural differences can explain the level of corporate governance to some extent. We analyze this relationship for the case of Switzerland. Swiss firms are mainly located in two...

The German Corporate Governance Code works according to the comply-or-explain principle. One of its recommendations was to publish the remuneration of the members of the executive board on an individual basis. We examine the characteristics of the firms that comply with the code requirement. Our...

The subprime crisis led to a wave of government interventions in the private sector that has been particularly strong in Europe and Latin America, where several governments are large shareholders in a variety of public firms. In a sense, the subprime crisis induced these governments to behave as...

Vital in preserving managerial accountability, the firmly established one share, one vote rule provides shareholders with limited rights to elect directors who appoint managers and to approve certain extraordinary transactions. Without the deterrents of risk of capital loss and fear of removal,...

Competitive advantage is typically based on a unique nexus of firm-specific investments that creates inimitable quasi-rents. As writing complete contracts on how to distribute the quasi-rents is impossible, stakeholders may underinvest in firm-specific assets to avoid the hold-up risk. This...

We examine the impact of mutual fund ownership on stock price informativeness in China. Existing evidence shows that stock price informativeness is low in China, and attributes this to firms' lack of disclosure incentives under the weak investor protection institutional environment. Mutual funds...

We examine the impact of state ownership on share price informativeness by using the unique setting of the Split Share Structure Reform in China. This reform abolishes the trading restriction of shares held mainly by state shareholders, which in turn renders their wealth more sensitive to share...