This interdisciplinary study examines how national culture affects corporate dividend policies. The dividend puzzle is one of the most studied, yet unresolved, issues in financial economics. Prior theoretical and empirical research has suggested several explanations of the dividend puzzle that...

We investigate the influence of national culture on corporate debt maturity choice. Based on the framework of Williamson, we argue that culture located in social embeddedness level can shape contracting environments by serving as an informal constraint that affects human actors’ incentives and...

We examine the effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on the cost of equity capital for a large sample of US firms. Using several approaches to estimate firms' ex ante cost of equity, we find that firms with better CSR scores exhibit cheaper equity financing. In particular, our findings...

We explore the relation between individualism and horizons and types of corporate investment, based on individualism’s implications for risk taking. We find that firms in individualistic countries invest more in long-term (risky) than in short-term (safe) assets. Moreover, the effect of...

This cross-disciplinary study examines how national culture practice affects cross-country variations in life insurance consumption. To proxy for national culture dimensions, we use the refined measure of the GLOBE project which includes several additional cultural dimensions not included in...

This study examines the economic motivation for global seasoned equity offerings made by US firms. We find that firms announcing global offerings have significantly less-negative market reactions than had they limited the issues to domestic only. The extent of the reduced price drop at issue...

Portfolio theory suggests that because of diversification benefits, multinational corporations (MNCs) should have lower risk and therefore could have more debt. Empirical studies, however, have repeatedly shown that MNCs from the US face higher risks and have lower debt levels. Burgman (1996)...

We examine the determinants of foreign investors' participation in the privatization process of developing countries. First, we estimate the probability that foreign investors target privatized firms in a given country. We show that a favorable legal environment where investor protection is...