This paper investigates whether geographic diversification is value-enhancing or value-destroying in the financial services sector, broadly defined. Our dataset comprises approximately 3579 observations over the period from 1985 to 2004 and covers the entire range of U.S. financial...

This paper investigates whether functional diversification is value-enhancing or value-destroying in the financial services sector, broadly defined. Based on a U.S. dataset comprising approximately 4060 observations covering the period 1985-2004, we report a substantial and persistent...

A focal point in strategic and regulatory debates about the pros and cons of diversification among financial institutions continues to be the issue of economies of scope in financial intermediation. In this paper, we summarize the theoretical research on the value of diversification in financial...

We investigate whether the diversification discount occurs partly as an artifact of poor corporate governance. In panel data models, we find that the discount narrows by 16% to 21% when we add governance variables as regression controls. We also estimate Heckman selection models that account for...

The issue of optimum bank scope is central to many proposals for banking system reform. For example, a core component of the Dodd-Frank Act (2010) and regulatory proposals in the UK and the EU has been the concept of “ring-fencing” – i.e., restricting banks’ activities to their core...

"Recent empirical research shows evidence of a positive relationship between the quality of firm-specific corporate governance and firm valuation. Instead of looking at one single corporate governance mechanism in isolation, we construct a broad corporate governance index and apply five...

"This paper empirically investigates the impact of both the first release of analysts' stock recommendations to a limited clientele and the subsequent dissemination of the same information in a major newspaper to a broader audience. For a sample of 1460 stock recommendations published in FuW,...

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the role of trust in the relationship between venture capitalist and entrepreneur. Following the social sciences literature, we try to differentiate between trust as an affective, value-based category from confidence which is understood as a...

We investigate the valuation effects of leadership structure in Switzerland where, in contrast to the u.s., a separation of the ceO and chairman functions is common. Consistent with the majority of prior research focusing on the u.s., we find no evidence of a systematic and significant...