One important aspect of financial markets is that there might be some traders that intentionally mislead other market participants by creating illusions in order to obtain a profit. We call this new concept illusionary finance. We present an analysis of how illusions can be created and...

In this paper, we raise the following two questions: (1) do Belgian holding companies operate an internal capital market to transfer financial resources in between their subsidiaries? And if yes, (2) is the internal capital market efficient? To answer the first question, we check if the group...

In this paper we study the ways in which the firm's choice of liquid assets is affected by the pattern of share ownership and by the control structures within the firm. We distinguish between three separate ways in which these relationships can affect liquid- ity. First, ownership concentration...

We study the relationship between liquid asset holding and the pattern of share ownership and control structures within the firm. We explore these issues using a data set of Belgian firms that is particularly well suited to studying the institutions of control oriented finance. The data include...

This paper analyzes the structure of national corporate board networks of all listed firms in a very large cross-section of countries. Controlling for degree distribution, the hypothesis of randomly generated bipartite board director networks is very strongly rejected using a rigorous simulation...

This paper considers the effect on performance of very large controlling shareholders, who are mostly organized in voting blocks and business groups, in a sample of Belgian listed firms from 1991 to 2006. We use a non-parametric panel data analysis, which is a new technique that does not impose...

This paper studies the impact of loss aversion on decisions regarding the allocation of wealth between risky and risk-free assets. We use a Value-at-Risk portfolio model with endogenous desired risk levels that are individually determined in an extended prospect theory framework. This framework...

This paper studies the attitude of non-professional investors towards financial losses and their decisions concerning wealth allocation among consumption, risky, and risk-free financial assets. We employ a two-dimensional utility setting in which both consumption and financial wealth...