This paper examines the broad-based grant of employee stock options (ESOs) in the period following the Initial Public Offering (IPO). Stock option grants are used to reduce the negative effects of conflicts of interests associated with a firm's going public. The study documents that option...

Using a comprehensive database of European firms, we study how private equity affects the rate of firm entry. We find that private equity investment benefits new business incorporation, especially in industries with naturally higher entry rates and R&D intensity. A two standard deviation...

We examine bidding firms' motives for disclosing a synergy forecast when announcing a merger or acquisition. Our sample consists of 1990 M&A deals, of which 345 announce synergy estimates. Our results suggest that synergy disclosures serve to obtain a more favorable market reception for deals...

This paper investigates how underwriters set the IPO firm’s fair value, an ex-ante estimate of the market value, using a unique dataset of 228 reports from French underwriters. These reports are issued before the IPO shares start trading on the stock market and detail how underwriters...

This paper examines the effect of the mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) on financial analysts' ability to translate accounting information into forward looking information. In particular, we investigate whether the switch to IFRS has an impact on (1) the...