We examine the privatization process of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the largest bank in the world by market capitalization, and its dual IPOs in the Hong Kong and Shanghai Stock exchanges in 2006. The Chinese government retains majority equity ownership of ICBC while...

The conventional wisdom up until the crisis was that efficient financial systems required privately owned banks and financial institutions. The events since 2007 have shown that financial systems such as China's, where banks are government owned but are also publicly listed can have a...

We provide a comprehensive review of China's financial system, and explore directions of future development. First, the financial system has been dominated by a large banking sector. In recent years banks have made considerable progress in reducing the amount of non-performing loans and...

We provide a comprehensive review of China's financial system, and explore directions of future development. First, the financial system has been dominated by a large banking sector. In recent years banks have made considerable progress in reducing the amount of non-performing loans and...

Investor protection is associated with greater investment-sensitivity to q and lower investment-sensitivity to cash flow. Finance plays a role in causing these effects; in countries with strong investor protection external finance increases more strongly with q, and declines more strongly with...

The recent financial crisis highlights the importance of understanding how financial market conditions impact the real economy. We ask whether access to external finance typically varies over time, and if so what the effects are on investment and employment. Consistent with time-varying external...

Attitudes towards business vary significantly across political lines, religious denominations, and ethnic groups. We utilize this variation to construct a measure of local business attitudes and show that firms in areas with stronger probusiness attitudes are less likely to incorporate in...

Previous studies find that U.S. firms make large equity issues when stock prices are high for the purpose of building precautionary cash savings. We find these effects internationally, but only in countries where it is less costly to issue equity. In countries where external finance is costlier,...