We examine how political, institutional, and economic factors are related to a country's decision to privatize state-owned banks. Using a panel of 101 countries from 1982 to 2000, we find that political factors significantly affect the likelihood of bank privatization only in developing...

We examine the relation between managers' personal beliefs about their firm's prospects, decisions by managers to make acquisitions, and decisions by managers to resist takeover offers for their firms. Using insider-trading data, we analyze whether managers are willing to stake their own money...

We analyze the choice between public and private equity financing of a unique, hand-collected sample of privately held firms that have indicated their willingness to raise outside equity. We document that these firms are remarkably similar at the time of the announcement, yet 71% complete an...

We test recent theories of when companies go public which predict that 1) more companies will go public when outside valuations are high or have increased, 2) companies prefer going public when uncertainty about their future profitability is high, and 3) firms whose controlling shareholders...

In 2001, the SEC required market centers to publish monthly execution-quality reports in an effort to spur competition for order flow between markets. Using samples of stocks trading on several markets, we investigate whether past execution quality affects order-routing decisions and whether the...

I analyze the effect of ownership structure and bank control on performance. I employ a unique data set of 715 German takeovers to test whether group structure, large shareholders, and bank control affect their value to shareholders. First, I find that takeovers increase bidder value, but...

This study provides a new empirical test of theories that use asymmetric information to explain underpricing in initial public offerings (IPOs). These models stipulate that the underwriter compensates informed investors for their price-relevant information through underpricing and price support....

Underpricing and rationing may occur in many markets, but nowhere is the debate about its cause more vigorous than in the market for initial public offerings (IPOs) of equity. This analysis contributes to the debate by showing that under-pricing is related to profits from after-market trading....

Disagreement persists about why IPOs are underpriced on average. In part because the more popular theories?based on asymmetric information, signaling, cascades, or investor feedback?are difficult to test, we do not know how much underpricing they can explain. We develop an alternative theory...

We first analyze legal provisions relating to corporate transparency in Germany. We show that despite the new securities trading law (WpHG) of 1995, the practical efficacy of disclosure regulation is very low. On the one hand, the formation of business groups involving less regulated legal forms...