The Basel credit-to-GDP gap is the single most popular measure of excessive credit growth and the financial cycle in general. It is based, however, on a purely statistical understanding of excessiveness: Growth is excessive if the credit-to-GDP ratio (i.e. the ratio of credit to nominal GDP) is...

Over the past years crowdfunding emerged as an alternative funding channel for entrepreneurs. In contrast to traditional financiers (banks, venture capital firms or angel investors), crowdfunding allows individuals to fund entrepreneurs directly even with small amounts. We received...

I find that corporate European leverage variation between 2007 and 2015 is largely driven by firm and industry characteristics. Conventional, time-varying firm characteristics explain as much leverage variation as country and industry fixed effects combined. Cross-sectional leverage disparities...

In this paper, we ask whether benefit corporations have a role to play in the emerging EU sustainable governance framework. In sec. 2, we briefly introduce the benefit corporation with regard to US law and to the laws of some EU member States, such as France and Italy, which have adopted this...

In this paper, we investigate whether reform of EU company law is needed to make corporate governance more sustainable through an analysis of some of the key questions found in the European Commission's questionnaire in its public consultation on sustainable corporate governance. We also...

We examine the effects of equity ownership by exchange traded funds (ETFs) on corporate cash holdings. We find that firms increase their cash holdings in response to higher anticipated risks generated by ETFs. To establish a causal interpretation, we use the Russell 1000/2000 index...

Domestic institutions can be a source of comparative advantage. This paper examines the role of Confucian clan culture, a long-standing institution at the heart of Chinese society, in firm exports. Using a nationally representative survey on private enterprises in China, we find that firms...

This study examines whether the use of tax haven subsidiaries by U.S. multinational corporations (MNCs) is associated with more intense use of share buybacks and with improvement in management's ability to generating revenues. I find that MNCs' more intensive tax haven subsidiary use is...

Recognizing the profound influence of geopolitical risks and world uncertainty on financial investment behaviour, this study uses a comprehensive approach to assess the impact of rising geopolitical risk on sovereign debt holdings for a panel of 24 OECD economies from Q1 2004 to Q4 2023. To do...