Why do private firms stay private? Empirical evidence on this issue is sparse, as most private firms in the US do not report their financial results. We investigate why private status matters by taking advantage of a unique dataset of large, leveraged private firms with SEC filings. Unlike a...

We find that U.S. corporations' demand for liquidity is sensitive to two importantfactors: uncertainty facing the rm and the quality of corporate governance. Fol-lowing prior research, we find that both factors have important influences on firms'cash holdings. Our results also indicate that the...

Around the world (with the U.S. and U.K. as exceptions) concentrated ownershipstructures and controlling shareholders are predominant even among listed firms. We providenovel empirical evidence how such controlling shareholders, in particular founding families,affect payout policy decisions....

This paper empirically investigates how the intensity of product market competitionaffects the cost of debt. Using a large sample of loans to publicly traded US manufac-turing fi…rms, I provide evidence that an intensi…fication of product market competitionamong fi…rms signifi…cantly...

A common method of valuing the equity in leveraged transactions is the flows-to-equity method whereby the free cash flow available to equity holders is discounted at the cost of equity. This method uses a standard definition of equity free cash flow, but the cost of equity varies over time as...

In this paper we challenge the view that corporate bonds are always arm's length debt. We analyze the effect of bond ratings on the stock price return to acquirers in M&A transactions, which tend to have significant effects on creditor wealth. We find acquirers abnormal returns to be higher if...

Social capital theory predicts individuals establish social ties based on homophily, i.e., affinities for similar others. We exploit a unique sample to analyze how similarities and social ties affect career outcomes in banking based on age, education, gender, and employment history to examine if...

We conduct an event study to assess the stock market evaluation of public takeover announcements. Unlike the majority of previous research, we specifically focus on acquisitions targeted at newly public IPO-firms and show that the stock market positively evaluates these M&As as R&D. However,...

Although acquisitions of high tech entrepreneurial firms are of great popularity, the limited empirical evidence shows that these acquisitions often lead to dismal results in that a large number of acquired inventors leave the company after the acquisition and those that remain exhibit poor...

Familienunternehmen gelten in der öffentlichen Wahrnehmung als besonders innovativ und als Hidden Champions der deutschen Wirtschaft. In jüngster Zeit widmen sich Forscher vermehrt der Überprüfung dieser These und kommen zu diametral unterschiedlichen Ergebnissen. Einerseits wird...