Is shareholder interest in corporate social responsibility driven by pecuniary motives (abnormal rates of return) or non-pecuniary ones (willingness to sacrifice returns to address various firm externalities)? To answer this question, we categorize the literature into seven tests: (1) costs of...

Previous studies show that the unsolicited ratings of S&P and Fitch are lower than the solicited ratings assigned by these two agencies. The unsolicited ratings of S&P and Fitch are based on publicly available information for a firm. However, no previous study has examined the unsolicited...

This study examines a risk/return mismatch of the MSCI China Index, which has offered investors low returns and high volatility, yet remains a favorite within the global investors' portfolio. The paper suggests several insights, both from behavioral and traditional finance perspectives, to...

This study aims to investigate how firm, industry, macroeconomic and institutional factors influence a firm's debt maturity structure decisions across nine African countries. We consider a sample of 986 non-financial firms over a period of 10 years (1999-2008). We specify panel data models that...

There are few things more constant in life than the rise and fall of financial markets. When markets crash, however, we are forced to restore them while learning from our mistakes. In the wake of the recent subprime mortgage crisis, Congress has drastically but deservedly overhauled the...

The aim of this study is to empirically investigate the role of firm- industry-, institutional-, and macroeconomic-factors on a firm's capital structure decision in the context of nine African countries. To this end, we consider a sample of 986 non-financial firms over a period of 10 years...

We examine the effect of the bond capital supply uncertainty of institutional investors (e.g., mutual bond funds and insurance companies) on the leverage of the firm using a novel data set. Our main finding is that the supply uncertainty of the firm's bond investor base — measured as (i) the...

This paper examines the volatility–volume relationship in Taiwan stock market, using volume data categorized by type of trader. We consider before and after our event period of lifting the investment restrictions for foreign investors. We partition trading volume into expected and unexpected...

This paper compares funding structure, financial facilities, and evolution of roles and activities of Export-Import Banks (EXIMs) in six Asian economies -- Japan, Korea, Taiwan of China (hereinafter referred as Taiwan), India, Thailand, and China. It examines the similarities and differences...

This paper attempts to compare policies and practices on the disclosure of external auditing results of deposit taking institutions in Hong Kong, Indonesia, China, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, Korea and Malaysia