Why do countries differ so much in terms of their financial systems? Are banks and equity competing or complementary sources of financing for firms? To address these questions, I study various determinants of capital market development and whether these determinants favor one form of capital...

Purpose: Study the impact of the heterogeneity of institutional investors, evident in their investment horizon, on firm credit ratings.Methodology/Approach: Use a large sample of U.S. firms over the period 1985 to 2006 (20,670 U.S. firm-year observations) to empirically investigate the...

This study uses a large sample of international stocks to examine the sources of the benefits of international portfolio diversification. It finds not only that international diversification outperformed industrial diversification over the past 25 years, but also that the gains from...

Using newly collected data on the ultimate ownership structure of publicly traded firms in nine East Asian economies, we find that family control is negatively related to the dividend payout ratio. Family firms are less (more) likely to increase (omit) dividends than non-family firms. These...