The use of stock options as executive compensation, after having developed in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s, has spread to continental Europe in the past fifteen years. The increasing weight of stock options in this region of the world raises various issues and feeds a vast literature...

Since the 2007-08 crisis, banks in many countries have been facing what seems to be a serious “trust crisis”. This sharp decline in trust in banks and banking, the likely outcome of the near-collapse of banking systems during the crisis, is partly captured by a growing empirical literature....

There is tremendous interest, in the economic literature, for the determinants of firms' capital structure decisions. A rich body of empirical works now exists that purports to identify firm- and country-level factors affecting firms' financing patterns. In addition, more recently, a new stream...