In 2003 China posted its highest economic growth rate in seven years, a robust 9.1 percent. Today the nation's gross domestic product (GDP) dwarfs by more than eight fold its level of 1978, the year China began taking its first tentative steps away from a centrally-planned communist economy...

Research on the macroeconomic impact of capital account liberalization finds few, if any, robust effects of liberalization on real variables. In contrast to the prevailing wisdom, I argue that the textbook theory of liberalization holds up quite well to a critical reading of this literature. The...

This paper studies firm-level leverage and performance measures before and after a currency crisis has occurred using data from 17 countries. We show that prior to a crisis, companies that are expected to benefit from currency depreciations increase their leverage more than other companies....

Cross-border mergers allow firms to alter the level of protection they provide to their investors, because target firms usually import the corporate governance system of the acquiring company. This article extends the existing literature by evaluating the effect of changes in corporate...

This paper shows that the real investment by non-financial firms is systematically related to the size of their defined-benefit plan. In particular, these plans allow R&D-intensive firms to retain and borrow from their employees, which is attractive since they have high adjustment costs, require...

This paper shows that defined benefit pension and health care plans are important for firm leverage around the world. While consolidating off-balance sheet post-retirement plans typically increases effective leverage by 32%, firms reduce their level of regular debt by only 23 cents for every...

We explore the determinants of equity price risk of non-financial corporations. Operating and asset characteristics are by far the most important determinants of risk. For the median firm, financial risk accounts for only 15% of observed stock price volatility. Furthermore, financial risk has...

We develop a simple measure of international ownership linkages and show that this measure is of similar importance as the traditional effects coming from country and industry fundamentals. International ownership linkages are not explained by omitted country/industry variations, wealth effects...

We develop a simple measure of international ownership linkages and show that this measure is of similar importance as the traditional effects coming from country and industry fundamentals. International ownership linkages are not explained by omitted country/industry variations, wealth effects...

This paper shows that defined benefit pension and health care plans are important for firm leverage around the world. While consolidating off-balance sheet post-retirement plans typically increases effective leverage by 32%, firms reduce their level of regular debt by only 22 cents for every...