This paper argues that institutional investors may have a positive effect on stock prices. This effect realizes through different mechanisms: institutional investors reduce information asymmetries between firms and (other) investors, contribute to the liquidity of the company’s stock and...

This paper reviews the theory and recent empirical studies on privatization, with a special focus on the efforts made in the case of China. Over the last decade, the Chinese government has initiated major privatizations in an attempt to promote more efficiency and improve the financial and...

This paper surveys capital structure theories based on product characteristics and the structure of input and output markets. In this manner, it extends the work of Harris and Raviv (1991). Simultaneously, we relate capital structure to decisions in the input and output markets, such as...

In this article, I discuss policy implications based on a study of the capital structure of business start-ups. Using a sample of 328 newly founded enterprises in Belgian manufacturing, it turned out that venture capital is barely used as a source of financing at the time of start-up. Also,...

Share issuing privatizations (SIPs) in China are partial in nature and involve the sale of newly issued shares. Using data on 521 Chinese SIPs during 1994-2005, this paper investigates the firm and stock market characteristics that determine the fraction of shares sold to the general public and...

We empirically investigate the sources, magnitude, and timing of synergy realization for 293 M&As by non-serial listed acquirers in Europe during 1997¨C2005. In contrast to much of the existing literature, we find that the shareholders of non-serial acquirers gain significantly upon deal...

This paper uses the framework developed by Helwege and Liang (1996) to investigate the post-listing financing decisions of 221 Chinese state-owned enterprises that were partially privatized via the stock market in 1994–1999. First, we estimate a logit panel data model to examine the decision...

Small and medium-sized enterprises are a centrepiece of Europes economy. Due to their limited size and their generally lower creditworthiness, their access to financial market instruments is more limited than for large enterprises, which benefit from more elaborate Treasury operations, economies...