This paper compares corporate financing in the German bank-based and UK market-based systems. Large German firms pay out a lower proportion of their profits as dividends and finance a larger proportion of their investments from retentions. German banks extend more long-term finance to...

This paper considers the 'failing firm defence', the principle found in most antitrust jurisdictions that a merger which would otherwise be blocked due to its adverse effect on competition might be permitted when the firm to be acquired is a failing firm and an alternative, less detrimental...

This paper considers irreversible investment in competing research projects with uncertain returns under a winner-takes-all patent system. Uncertainty takes two distinct forms: the technological success of the project is probabilistic, while the economic value of the patent to be won evolves...

This paper examines the irreversible adoption of a technology whose returns are uncertain, when there is an advantage to being the first adopter, but a network advantage to adopting when others also do so. Two patterns of adoption emerge: sequential, in which the leader aggressively preempts its...

This paper uses a new data-set to examine how internal capital markets and foreign ownership affect investment. Our data allow us to compare investment behaviour of listed subsidiaries with stand-alone firms while controlling for investment opportunities of parent and subsidiary firms. We...

Corporate governance is one of the most topical and controversial areas of business and finance. This article provides an overview of the questions that it raises and proposed policy responses. It points to the diversity in systems of corporate governance around the world, the apparently...

A significant recent development has been the extension of market processes to activities which were previously provided by the public sector. A central feature of newly privatised markets is the emergence of widespread forms of contracting. Explicit contracting is used where in the past...