It has been the traditional belief that profits and ethics are at odds with each other in the world of business. Corporate governance appears to be a hindrance or a drag on profit maximization. This work shows that moral codes, public interest and social values pose no threat to profit...

In the UK, SSAP 13 requires that firms immediately expense most of their Ramp;D expenditures. The reported earnings of high-Ramp;D expenditure firms are therefore likely to convey less value-relevant information to investors than those of less research-intensive firms. Using a sample of firms...

This paper provides a comprehensive set of contemporaneous estimates of the market risk for globally listed stocks on 59 world equity markets. The results reveal that the estimates of the systematic risk of a stock are distinct from market to market, and from the stock's corresponding estimate...

The Federal Reserve - the central bank of the United States - often is cited as the regulator of our economy. This economy is the largest in the world, and, by virtue of the interdependence of other global economies through the foreign exchange market and other capital markets, the Federal...

This dissertation is a discourse on the capital market and its interactive framework of acquisition and issuance of financial assets that drive the economy from both sides--investors/lenders and issuers/users of capital assets. My work consists of four essays in financial economics that offer a...