Bookbuilding, the dominant offering mechanism for IPOs in the U.S. and other markets, is controversial because of the power it gives underwriters over IPO allocations. Critics point to the fact that allocations could be abused to generate kickbacks for underwriters while proponents argue that...

We discuss the literature on the shift from stakeholder to shareholder finance behind the Great Financial Crisis (GFC). Traditional banks generally maximized stakeholder value (STV). But before the GFC also many of them started maximizing shareholder value (SHV). Moving from STV to SHV often...

Standard explanatory variables that determine credit ratings do not achieve significant effects in a sample of 100 US non-financial firms in an ordered probit panel estimation. Sample size and selection as well as the distribution of explanatory variables across rating classes may be the cause...

We examine the interaction between the legal protection of investors, corporate governance within firms, institutional development between countries, and investable premia in emerging markets. In a multi country setting and using a novel dataset we find that better-governed firms experience...

We use a unique, hand-collected database of independent directors to provide evidence that firms appoint independent directors who are overly sympathetic to management, while still technically independent according to regulatory definitions. We explore a subset of independent directors for whom...

We discuss a simple, exactly solvable model of stochastic stock dynamics that incorporates regime switching between healthy and distressed regimes. Using this model, which is analytically tractable, we discuss a way of extracting expected returns for stocks from realized CDS spreads,...

The internet has created challenges for regulators of financial markets unimagined over eighty years ago by drafters of the Securities and Exchange Acts. The recent explosion in internet use has provided many benefits for investors and publicly-traded companies. The Internet has been a boon to...

Using a continuous time, structural model of a dealer-bank, we derive fair value equations for credit risky financial products that can not be perfectly hedged, fully taking into account the impact the contracts have on the dealer-bank's earnings volatility and, consequently, their solvency and...

Using hand collected data from offering prospectuses and other corporate filings, we examine the market response to real estate investment trust (REIT) follow-on stock offerings’ stated uses of proceeds. We also track REIT banking relationships over time. Consistent with the idea of bank...

Prior studies have shown that investment banking affiliations place pressure on analysts to produce optimistic recommendations on the investment bank's stock-clients. Our analysis of a large sample of recommendations issued from 1995 through 2003 indicates that a mutual fund affiliation also...