This article presents the results of an empirical analysis regarding the corporate demand for insurance. As several studies before tested the theoretical arguments for the corporate motivation to purchase insurance, this article provides the fist empirical analysis focussing on the insurance...

Enterprise risk management (ERM) is the approach of managing all risks faced by an enterprise in an integrated, holistic fashion. This research investigates whether the utilization of the ERM approach helps firms achieve economies of scale and scope. We use detailed survey data of German...

This study provides new stylized facts on the determinants of corporate failure and acquisition in Germany. It also offers important lessons for the design of empirical studies. We show that firms experiencing failure or acquisition are significantly different from surviving firms on a number of...

This study provides new stylized facts on the determinants of corporate failure and acquisition in Germany. It also offers important lessons for the design of empirical studies. We show that firms experiencing failure or acquisition are significantly different from surviving firms on a number of...

This paper investigates how multinational firms choose their capital structure in response to political risk. We focus on two choice variables, the leverage and the ownership structure of the foreign affiliate, and we distinguish different types of political risk, like expropriation, corruption...

Multinational companies can exploit the tax advantage of debt more aggressively than national companies. Besides utilizing the standard debt tax shield, multinationals can shift debt from affiliates in low-tax countries to affiliates in high-tax countries. We study the capital structure of...

We use a dynamic framework and panel methodology to investigate the determinants of a firms' time-varying capital structure. Our sample comprises 706 European firms from France, Germany, Italy and the U.K. over the period from 1983 to 2002. If capital structure adjustment is costly, firms may...

This study investigates the financing decisions within German SMEs, examining firm-specific, macroeconomic, and news-related determinants. Utilizing a 10-year dataset encompassing 13,051 SMEs, we employ a dynamic panel data model with an unbiased Dynamic Panel Fractional (DPF) estimator to...

Life insurance companies are affected directly by the impact of the low-interestrate environment. To fulfil promised guarantees they may be forced to tap into their own funds, say if the current income generated is no longer sufficient to cover the policyholders’ profit participation share as...