This report evaluates and compares the evolution and the determinants of the capital structure of Brazilian firms, with a particular emphasis on external financing. One of its main conclusions is that country factors are nearly as important as firm level factors. Industry factors are not very...

One of the main reasons that investment advisors recommend international investments is that foreign stocks are not highly correlated with U.S. stocks. As world economies become increasingly interrelated, it may become more difficult for investors to achieve effective diversification. This...

We construct a corporate governance practices index (CGI) from a set of 24 questions that can be objectively answered from publicly available information. Our goal was to measure the overall quality of corporate governance practices of the largest possible number of firms without the biases and...

We consider pairwise tail behavior of return series for identifying most important emerging markets clusters. Pairs of markets belonging to the same group present similar type and strength of interdependence during stressful times, represented by a common copula and a statistically equivalent...