We investigate negotiations over real estate and find that men secure better prices than women when negotiating to buy and sell property. However, the gender difference declines substantially when improving controls for the property's value; and is eliminated when controlling for unobserved...

This paper uses a unique dataset from Denmark to examine the impact of owners family characteristics (size, gender composition, divorce, etc) on the decision to appoint internal (family) or external chief executive officers (CEOs). In contrast to common perceptions, we find that conditional on...

We analyze the impact of a 75 pct. Break-Through rule on 1,035 European firms with dual class shares. In 3-5 pct. of the firms the controlling owners incur a direct loss of control, whereas in additional 11-17 pct. of the firms the controlling owners are likely to incur a control loss. Firms in...

We investigate contributions of independent directors to shareholder value by examining stock price reactions to sudden deaths in the U.S. from 1994 to 2007. We find, first, that following director death, stock prices drop by 0.85% on average. Second, the degree of independence and board...

This paper uses a unique dataset from Denmark to investigate the impact of family characteristics in corporate decision making and the consequences of these decisions on firm performance. We focus on the decision to appoint either a family or external chief executive officer (CEO). The paper...

Entrepreneurial finance literature has highlighted that institutional investors are the main contributors to private equity funds. This paper complements these findings by documenting that institutional investors also invest directly in private equity. A major concern for such investments is the...

This paper exploits a natural experiment to investigate the impact of participation constraints on households' decision to invest in the stock market. Exogenous variation in financial wealth results from unexpected inheritance due to sudden deaths, and allows us to examine the causal impact of...