This paper investigates the characteristics of firms that adopt persistent policies of low leverage and substantial cash reserves. In doing so, specific attention is paid to the role of internal corporate governance mechanisms in influencing firms' conservative financial policies. The analysis...

This article shows that, contrary to common wisdom, the insurgence of a multiplicity of clusters in the distribution of income is not necessarily against the hypothesis of absolute convergence. Using data for the world economies, the US states, the EU regions, and the Italian regions, we find...

We define the wage incentive to management as the wage premium the manager earns because of his/her supervising role. We adopt an approach based on what if questions and estimate the premium at different quantiles of the distribution of wages for 26 European economies. To ease comparisons we...

We investigate whether the investment-cash flow sensitivity is monotonic in the degree of financing constraints. By using a large panel of publicly traded non-financial U.K. firms, we show that the investment-cash flow sensitivity is neither monotonically increasing nor decreasing in the most...

In this article we examine the dynamics of economic reforms that are implemented by incumbent policy-makers interested in maintaining their political power. We use a sample of 86 countries over a time period going from 1980 to 2001 and find that the achievement of an equilibrium level of market...

This study examines the impact of education on criminal activity in Italy. A number of hypotheses are tested regarding the effects of education and past incidence of crime on criminal activity, using annual data for the 20 Italian regions over the period 1980 to 1995. Empirical results show that...

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we study the allocation of European Union (EU) expenditure in Research and Development (R&D) across European regions. Second, we focus on the effects of this variable on regional per capita GDP levels, and on regional growth rates. Using...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify firms in the UK adopting a policy of high cash and low leverage and investigate how executive ownership contributes to this decision. Design/methodology/approach Firms following this policy are identified both by using a fixed classification...

Purpose The aim of this paper is to investigate the dynamics between executive ownership and excess cash policy in the UK. Design/methodology/approach The authors identify firms adopting an excess policy using a joint criterion of high cash and cash higher than the target. Logit analysis is used...

This paper examines the relationship between political competition and financial development across a global sample of 127 countries, with a particular focus on developed and democratic OECD countries. Building on the theoretical frameworks of Acemoglu and Robinson (2006) and Besley et al....