This paper summarises the main results of a research project, quot;Who Controls Corporate Europe?quot;, undertaken by teams of researchers from the various countries investigated, and coordinated by the European Corporate Governance Network in 1996-98. The project relied on a common shareholder...

This chapter surveys the theoretical and empirical research on the main mechanisms of corporate law and governance, discusses the main legal and regulatory institutions in different countries, and examines the comparative governance literature. Corporate governance is concerned with the...

Corporate governance is concerned with the resolution of collective action problems among dispersed investors and the reconciliation of conflicts of interest between various corporate claimholders. In this survey we review the theoretical and empirical research on the main mechanisms of...

This paper models optimal executive compensation in a setting where managers are in a position to influence the public perception of their company, and thus the short-term stock price. Stock prices take the possibility of manipulation into account but fail to fully back it out, the degree of...

This paper investigates three capital structure decisions – leverage, debt maturity and the source of debt – in a simultaneous setting. Moreover, we investigate whether these choices are influenced by the involvement of banks in a firm. Our results based on a panel of Dutch firms...

The Dutch East India Company or VOC in 1602 showed many characteristics of modern corporations, including limited liability, freely transferable shares, and well-defined managerial functions. However, we challenge the notion of the VOC as the precursor of modern corporations to argue that the...

In this paper we present the results of an international survey among 313 CFOs on capital structure choice. We document several interesting insights on how theoretical concepts are being applied by professionals in the U.K., the Netherlands, Germany, and France and we directly compare our...