Institutional theory suggests that informal institutions effectively constrain human behavior. Culturally embedded norms and values align corporate governance with socially acceptable outcomes. We argue that active foreign investors can act as agents of change in corporate governance....

Both formal (legal) and informal (culture, language, religion) institutions determine the intensity of cross-border joint ventures between one US and one foreign partner. Using a sample of cross-border joint ventures from 105 countries, we investigate the impact of country legal, cultural and...

Opacity fosters price contagion that exacerbates the speculative cycles of bubbles and crashes that create financial instability. We find that banks with larger investments in opaque assets benefitted more from intra-industry revaluations associated with announcements of mergers in the period...