In this paper, we investigate the attitudes of institutional investors, such as hedge funds, insurance companies, mutual funds and pension funds, towards a key corporate governance mechanism, namely executive compensation. The purpose of this study is to document the preferences they have about...

This study looks inside a large retail-banking group to understand how corporate politics affect internal capital allocation. The group consists of a headquarters organization and about 150 member banks which own the headquarters. Our data is from the firm’s managerial accounting system and...

Abstract: In this paper, we investigate the attitudes of institutional investors, such as hedge funds, insurance companies, mutual funds and pension funds, towards a key corporate governance mechanism, namely executive compensation. We document the preferences they have about both the level and...

Investors and academics increasingly criticize that features of employee stock option (ESO) programs reflect rent-extraction by managers (managerial power view). We use a unique European data set to investigate the relationship between the design of ESO programs and corporate governance...

We study whether the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002 made firms less opaque. For identification, we use a difference-in-differences estimation approach and compare EU firms that are cross-listed in the US—and therefore subject to SOX—with comparable EU firms that are not cross-listed. We...

We study the role of private equity firms in cross-border mergers and acquisitions. We find that private equity-owned firms are more likely to become targets in crossborderM&A transactions. This effect is particularly strong in transactions where the target or its shareholders actively reach out...

After publication of the Baker/Wurgler study (2002) the Market Timing theory has established itself as an alternative capital structure theory. It implies that the capital market structure of an enterprise represents the accumulated result of Equity Market Timing attempts. Within the framework...

We analyze proprietary internal capital allocation data from a large retail banking group consisting of member banks and a headquarters organization. We find that capital allocations from headquarters compensate for deposit shortfalls on the bank level, suggesting that the headquarters offers...

Does more bargaining power of managers inside a firm lead to larger allocations of capital? To tackle this question, we use unique and proprietary panel data on planned and realized capital allocations inside a very large conglomerate. The firm operates worldwide, is headquartered in Europe and...