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...

Non-U.S. firms can converge toward U.S. capital market and legal regulations by cross-listing in the U.S. or by being acquired by a U.S. bidder. We show companies that are smaller, have lower growth opportunities, are capital intensive, and benefit from bonding through compliance with U.S....

We hypothesize that macro-level liquidity affects the choice between tender-mergers and mergers. We employ a novel methodology to test this relationship. This method finds structural breaks in the number of tender-mergers relative to mergers and finds that the structural breaks coincide...

Using a sample of foreign firms listed in U.S. and delisting shares over the period 2000 and 2010, this paper studies the impact of Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) on the cross-delisting behavior of foreign firms based on the firm characteristics, legal tradition, overall culture and degree of...

Legal rights of investors are recognized as an essential component of corporate governance. We assess the efficacy of these rights by examining board changes surrounding the filings of shareholder derivative lawsuits. We find that the incidence of derivative lawsuits is higher for firms with a...

An existing finance theory predicts that managers of takeover targets will increase leverage to enhance managerial control which can, in turn, allow target managers to thwart a takeover attempt altogether. We find that targets significantly increase leverage, not only by issuing more debt, but...

We examine how the organizational structure for diversification decisions involving firms from different countries is affected by the institutional context of the target country. Our theoretical analysis suggests that, as legal systems improve and information asymmetry is reduced, a transition...

Consistent with prior literature, we find that increases in target leverage have a positive impact on returns to target shareholders irrespective of the source of debt. Even so, financing with bank debt has a remarkably different impact. If a target firm’s debt is primarily sourced from banks,...

Despite SEC and state-level resistance, and contrary to the trend pursued by other firms, many electric utilities have diversified into non-electric and unregulated businesses. Moreover, this failure to focus has been rewarded with higher firm values, again contrary to the discounts documented...

Significant increases in the level of target leverage have been previously documented, following unsuccessful takeover attempts. This increased leverage may signal managerial commitment to improved performance, suggesting that corporate performance and leverage should be positively related. If,...