We provide insights into determinants of the rating level of 371 issuers which defaulted in the years 1999 to 2003, and into the leader-follower relationship between Moody’s and S&P. The evidence for the rating level suggests that Moody’s assigns lower ratings than S&P for all observed...

This paper assesses biases in credit ratings and lead-lag relationships for near-to-default issuers with multiple ratings by Moody's and Samp;P. Based on defaults from 1997 to 2004, we find evidence that Moody's seems to adjust its ratings to increasing default risk in a timelier manner than...

Operational risk incidences are likely to increase the degree of information asymmetry between firms and investors. We analyze operational risk disclosures by US financial firms during 1995–2009 and their impact on different measures of information asymmetry in the firms’ equity markets....

Die vorliegende empirische Studie analysiert die Vertragsgestaltung zwischen Investoren und europäischen Venture Capital-Fonds. Im Zentrum steht die Analyse der Vergütung des Fondsmanagements sowie der zum Einsatz kommenden Vertragsklauseln. Deren Ausgestaltung ist entscheidend für die...

In this paper, we seek empirical evidence for information rents in loan spreads by analyzing a sample of UK syndicated loan contracts for the period from 1996 to 2005. We use various measures for borrower opaqueness and control for bank, borrower and loan characteristics and we find that...

The paper describes the legal and economic environment of mergers and acquisitions in Germany and explores barriers to obtaining and executing corporate control. Various cases are used to demonstrate that resistance by different stakeholders including minority shareholders, organized labour and...

The paper explores factors that influence the design of financing contracts between venture capital investors and European venture capital funds. 122 Private Placement Memoranda and 46 Partnership Agreements are investigated in respect to the use of covenant restrictions and compensation...

Prior research has addressed the question of whether certain events cause a transfer of wealth between stockholders and bondholders but does not control for the events’ impacts on firms’ credit risk. This may explain why many studies fail to identify wealth transfers. By employing...