type="main" <title type="main">ABSTRACT</title> <p>The recent financial crisis shows that financial markets can impact the real economy. We investigate whether access to finance typically time-varies and, if so, what are the real effects. Consistent with time-varying external finance costs, both investment and employment are...</p>

We examine the privatization process of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the largest bank in the world by market capitalization, and its dual initial public offerings (IPOs) in the Hong Kong and Shanghai Stock exchanges in 2006. The Chinese government retains majority equity...

We argue that the size and composition of corporate boards are determined by tradeoffs involving the information that directors bring to boards versus the coordination costs and free rider problems associated with their additions to boards. Our hypotheses lead to predictions that firm size and...

We examine the diversification patterns of almost all publicly listed non-financial companies in China during the 2001 to 2005 period. More than 70 percent of the firms in our sample are diversified. We document that patterns of diversification strongly depend on firms' political connections....

We examine the relation between bidder returns and the probability of chief executive officer (CEO) turnover in acquiring firms. Using a sample of 714 acquisitions during 1990 to 1998, we find that 47% of CEOs of acquiring firms are replaced within 5 years, including 27% by internal governance,...

Cross-sectional research finds that corporate financing choices are not only affected by firm and industry factors, but also by country institutional factors. This study focuses on the roles of public governance in firm financing patterns. To conduct a natural experiment that avoids endogeneity,...

We provide a comprehensive review of China's financial system, and explore directions of future development. First, the financial system has been dominated by a large banking sector. In recent years banks have made considerable progress in reducing the amount of non-performing loans and...

<heading id="h1" level="1" implicit="yes" format="display">Abstract</heading>We investigate how director incentives affect the occurrence of firms' backdating employee stock options. Directors with more wealth tied up in stock options may pursue activities that lead to personal gain, such as option backdating, which potentially increases the option recipient's...