Using a unique sample of newly privatized firms from 59 countries, this study provides new evidence about the agency costs of state ownership and new insight into the corporate governance role of country-level institutions. Consistent with agency theory, we find strong and robust evidence that...

A key issue in the finance-growth nexus literature is endogeneity – economic growth may drive finance as well as finance driving growth. Some research addresses endogeneity using relatively exogenous shocks from U.S. bank geographic deregulation, often documenting favorable economic effects....

Recent events, most notably the Global Financial Crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, have made it increasingly apparent that liquidity is synonymous with corporate survival. In this paper, we explore how governments can fulfill an important need as suppliers of liquidity. Building on the financing...

In analyzing newly collected data on the ultimate ownership structure of publicly traded firms in nine East Asian economies, we contribute to international accounting research by providing evidence on earnings management in insider-controlled firms in this region. We find that family-controlled...

We provide unique firm-level evidence of the relation between state ownership and stock liquidity. Using a broad sample of newly privatized firms (NPFs) from 53 countries over the period 1994–2014, our study identifies a non-monotonic association between state ownership and stock liquidity....

Using the high-power setting of newly privatized firms from 64 countries, we examine the relationship between ownership type and firm-level capital allocations as captured by the sensitivity of investment expenditure to investment opportunities. Consistent with our predictions that government...

Building on Desai and Dharmapala’s (2006) complementarity theory on the relation between tax avoidance and insider diversion, we contribute to international research by examining the importance of tax avoidance to equity pricing, and the role that institutional environments play in shaping...

We provide the first firm-level evidence of the relation between state ownership and debt structure. Using an international sample of newly privatized firms (NPFs) from 76 countries over the 1998–2017 period, we find that state ownership is associated with a more diversified debt structure....

Using a sample of cross-listed firms from 51 countries and a difference-in-differences approach that exploits corporate governance shocks induced by cross-listing in the U.S., we find that firms tend to engage in less tax avoidance after cross-listing. This effect is more pronounced for firms...