When firms approach distress, whether they engage in asset substitution (risk shifting) or rebuild equity (risk management) may depend on their access to capital markets. The property-casualty insurance industry has two features that make it ideal for testing this hypothesis: (1) the main losses...

A change in the corporate tax level can have a significant impact on rate making and capital structure for insurance companies. The purpose of this paper is to study this effect on competitive equity-premium combinations for different asset and liability models while retaining a fixed safety...

We use a dynamic framework and panel methodology to investigate the determinants of a firms' time-varying capital structure. Our sample comprises 706 European firms from France, Germany, Italy and the U.K. over the period from 1983 to 2002. If capital structure adjustment is costly, firms may...

We use a dynamic framework and panel methodology to investigate the determinants of a time-varying corporate capital structure. Our sample comprises 706 European firms from France, Germany, Italy and the U.K. over the period from 1983 to 2002. If capital structure adjustment is costly, firms may...

We examine financial constraints and forms of finance used for investment, byanalysing survey data on 157 large privatised companies in Hungary and Poland for theperiod 1998 – 2000. The Bayesian analysis using Gibbs sampling is carried out toobtain inferences about the sample companies’...

Building on the ‘law and economics’ literature, this paper analyses corporategovernance implications of debt financing in an environment where a dominant owner isable to extract ex ante ‘private benefits of control’. Ownership concentration may result inlower efficiency, measured as a...

This paper examines the effects of capital gains taxation on firms’ investmentand financing decisions. We develop a real options model in which the timing ofinvestment, the decision to default, and the firm’s capital structure are endogenouslyand jointly determined. Our analysis demonstrates...

This paper examines the effects of capital gains taxation on firms’ investmentand financing decisions. We develop a real options model in which the timing ofinvestment, the decision to default, and the firm’s capital structure are endogenouslyand jointly determined. Our analysis demonstrates...

This paper analyzes the interaction between financial leverage and takeover activity. We develop a dynamic model of takeovers in which the financing strategies of bidding firms and the timing and terms of takeovers are jointly determined. In the paper, capital structure plays the role of a...

The aim of this study is to test whether the relation between the informational content of equity offering announcements and their impact on the firm value depends on the motive of the offering. The use of the proceeds allows differentiating the equity issues according to the theories that...