What motivates investors to hold American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) rather than the underlying stock of U.S. listed foreign firms? We analyze the investment allocation decision of actively-managed emerging market mutual fund managers. Although legal provisions are typically assumed to affect...

In this paper we study the relationship between firm age, the use of external finance and new investment decisions, in a sample of European firms. We find that younger firms use less bank financing than older firms only in non-EU countries, suggesting that greater financial development and a...

We employ a novel dataset on almost 30,000 trade credit contracts to describe the broad characteristics of the parties that contract together and the key contractual terms of these contracts. Whereas prior work has typically used information on only one side of the buyer-seller transaction, this...

This paper uses a series of experiments with commercial bank loan officers to test the effect of performance incentives on risk-assessment and lending decisions. We first show that, while high-powered incentives lead to greater screening effort and more profitable lending, their power is muted...

The ability of consumers to make informed financial decisions improves their ability to develop sound personal finance. This paper uses a panel dataset from Russia, an economy in which consumer loans grew at an astounding rate - from about US$10 billion in 2003 to over US$170 billion in 2008 -...

The ability of consumers to make informed financial decisions improves their ability to develop sound personal finance. This paper uses a panel dataset from Russia, an economy in which consumer loans grew at an astounding rate - from about US$10 billion in 2003 to over US$170 billion in 2008 -...

We use an experiment with commercial bank loan officers to test how performance based compensation affects risk-assessment and lending. High-powered incentives lead to greater screening effort and more profitable lending decisions. This effect, however, is muted by deferred compensation and...

Our study contributes to the financial literacy literature by examining its association with retirement planning in an interesting and novel context, i.e. that of a country with a relatively old and rapidly ageing population, large regional disparities and a rapidly emerging financial market....

Using a comprehensive database of firms in Western and Eastern Europe, we study how the business environment in a country drives the creation of new firms. Our focus is on regulations governing entry. We find entry regulations hamper entry, especially in industries that naturally should have...

Recent research studying the link between law and finance has concentrated on country-level investor protection measures and focused on differences in legal systems across countries and legal families. Klapper and Love extend this literature and provide a study of firm-level corporate governance...