We survey 78 Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) from 12 European countries about the determinants of going public and exchange listing decisions. The CFOs identify enhanced visibility and prestige, and financing for growth as the most important benefits of an IPO. Their views on other motivations...

As domestic sources of outside finance are limited in many countries around the world, it is important to understand factors that influence whether foreign investors provide capital to a country's firms. We study 4,409 firms from 29 countries to assess whether and why concerns about corporate...

This paper studies the marginal debt issuance behavior of publicly traded companies using firm-level data from 42 countries. The implications of the strict version of the pecking order theory regarding marginal debt financing are rejected in the international data overall. However, and more...

This paper studies the marginal debt issuance behavior of publicly traded companies with firm-level data from 42 countries. The focus is on the extent to which measures from the literature on finance and development can help to explain the observed differences among countries in the corporate...

This paper studies the determinants and the value effects of corporate hedging for 227 Hong Kong and Chinese companies listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange. Using data from disclosures in the annual reports, we find strong evidence linking the decision to hedge and the expected costs of...

Political risks increase the volatility of multinational firm operating returns, prompting firms to adjust their capital structures. Politically risky countries feature more volatile returns, and the volatility of a parent company's aggregate foreign returns also increases with the extent of the...

For many countries, the most significant barriers to trade in financial assets have been knocked down. Yet, the financial world is not flat because poor governance prevents firms from being widely held and from taking full advantage of financial globalization. Poor governance has implications...

For years, there has prevailed a conventional wisdom rationalizing why firms pursue overseas listings. It argues that firms seek such opportunities to benefit from a lower cost of capital that arises, because its shares become more accessible to global investors whose access would otherwise be...

On February 19, 2001, the Chinese Securities Regulatory Commission announced that Chinese residents would be allowed to own B-share classes of stocks traded on both the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets. These share classes were previously restricted to foreign investors while domestic...

This paper examines the influence of institutional differences on corporate risk management practices in the US and the Netherlands. We compare results to surveys in each country using a strategy that corrects for differences over industry and size classes across the Dutch and US samples. We...