We study the relation between initial IPO underpricing and two-tier board structure in the Vienna Stock Exchange of Austria, where a two-tier board is mandatory for listed companies. The board ratio, defined as the size of the supervisory board to the management board, is used to capture the...

This paper investigates whether foreign institutional investors in emerging markets can enhance shareholder value. We pay special attention to two dimensions of investor heterogeneity: whether an investor declares itself as an activist, and whether an investor comes from a country with a strong...

Using a cross-country sample, we examine the CEO tournament structure (measured alternatively as the ratio and the difference of pay between the CEO and other top executives within a firm). We find the tournament structure to vary systematically with firm and country cultural characteristics. In...

We develop and test a model that investigates how controlling shareholders' expropriation incentives affect firm values during crisis and subsequent recovery periods. Consistent with the prediction of our model, we find that during the 1997 Asian financial crisis, Asian firms with weaker...

We examine the wealth effects of three regulatory changes designed to improve minority-shareholder protection in the Chinese stock markets. Using the value of a firm's related-party transactions as an inverse proxy for the quality of corporate governance, we find that firms with weaker...

This study is the first to analyze the effect on firm value of companies when they participate in the ownership of others companies in an emerging South American economy. For a sample of 83 non-financial Chilean companies traded in the 2005-2009 period, we find evidence of a discount for...

This study examines the impact of country-level earnings quality on IPO underpricing. Examining 10,783 IPOs from 37 countries, we find that IPOs are underpriced less in countries where public firms produce higher quality earnings information. This finding persists after controlling for other...

That a link exists between a country's legal system and the size, liquidity, and value of its capital markets is well established. We study how differences in country-level governance impact the underpricing of initial public offerings (IPOs). Examining 4,462 IPOs across 29 countries from...

We adopt a multi-theoretic approach to investigate a previously unexplored phenomenon in extant literature, namely the differential impact of foreign institutional and foreign corporate shareholders on the performance of emerging market firms. We show that the previously documented positive...

This paper uses a sample of over 2,500 firms from 27 countries to investigate the relation between ownership structure, analyst following, investor protection and valuation. We find that analysts are less likely to follow firms with potential incentives to withhold or manipulate information,...