Using a unique and comprehensive dataset, this paper develops and uses three distinct methods to quantify the risk of a systemic failure in the global banking system. We examine a sample of 334 banks (representing 80% of global bank equity) in 28 countries around 6 global financial crises (such...

We analyze 1.56 million account allocations in a sample of 265 initial public offerings (IPOs) to investigate the importance of on-going relationships between investors and underwriters. We find a sizable set of both institutional and retail investors who receive frequent allocations in IPOs....

We assemble a sample of over 10,000 customer-supplier relationships and determine whether the customer owns equity in the supplier. We find that factors related to both contractual incompleteness and financial market frictions are important in the decision of a customer firm to take an equity...

What is good for a country's leading corporations is generally not good for the country's overall economy. Turnover in the list of a country's top ten corporations between 1975 and 1996 is associated with faster overall economic growth, faster productivity growth, and (in high income countries)...

This study examines the influence of institutional environment on capital structure and debt maturity choices by examining a cross-section of firms in 39 developed and developing countries. We find that a country's legal and tax system, the level of corruption and the preferences of capital...

As measured by the number of bidders that publicly attempt to acquire a target, the takeover arena in the 1990s was not competitive. However, we develop a new measure competition based on the pre-public, private takeover process that indicates that public takeover activity is only the tip of the...

Using proxy data on all Fortune 500 firms during 1994-2000, we establish that, in order to understand whether and when family firms are more or less valuable than nonfamily firms, one must distinguish among three fundamental elements in the definition of family firms: ownership, control, and...

We examine whether irrational behavior among small (retail) investors drives post-IPO prices. We use prices from the grey market (the when-issued market that precedes European IPOs) to proxy for small investors' valuations. High grey market prices (indicating excessive optimism) are a very good...

Legal and institutional differences shape the ownership and terms of bank loans across the world. With strong creditor protection, we show that loans have concentrated ownership, long maturity and low interest rates. The impact of creditor rights on loans also depends on borrower characteristics...

We construct and analyze a comprehensive list of dual-class firms in the United States and use this list to investigate the relationship between insider ownership and firm value. Our data has two useful features for this valuation analysis. First, since dual-class stock separates cash-flow...