Survey evidence shows CFOs to believe that earnings management can enhance investor valuation of their firms. This evidence raises the question of correspondence between the beliefs of CFOs and investors. Surveying financial analysts to gain insight into how earnings management influences...

Nearly one-third of asset sale announcements are preceded by a public statement of intent to sell. These voluntary disclosures generate significant average returns of 1.1% and bias returns around actual asset sales towards zero. Due to opportunistic managerial behavior, preannouncements occur...

This paper examines the influence of institutional differences on risk management practices in the US and the Netherlands. This comparison is interesting because the Dutch firms' institutional setting differs from the US setting with respect to shareholder orientation, international trade,...

This paper examines private information spillover from the lending market to markets for public securities. We find that information from private monthly reports to institutional lenders gradually spills over to the public equity market. We observe positive abnormal stock returns after firms...

This paper investigates the timing of a firm's first security issue in public capital markets. We explain fluctuations over time in initial public offerings of bonds and stocks. We study Belgium in the period 1839-1935, a setting with poor investor protection, no tax distortions and changing...

Dutch-Caribbean plantations attracted substantial outside funding in the 1760s. This came to an abrupt end after the 1773 credit crisis. We use one banker's detailed archives to analyze how bankers and investors were initially able to overcome asymmetric information problems, and why the system...

Royal Ahold (Koninklijke Ahold NV) was one of the major success stories in the 1990s and is one of the major failures in corporate governance, suffering a complete meltdown in 2003. This clinical study analyzes Ahold's growth strategy through acquisitions and isolates the cause of the failed...

This paper examines the influence of institutional differences on corporate risk management practices in the US and the Netherlands. We compare results to surveys in each country using a strategy that corrects for differences over industry and size classes across the Dutch and US samples. We...

This paper analyses ownership and control structures of Dutch listed companies. Legislation effective since 1992 mandates all shareholders with holdings of 5 percent or more in Dutch companies to disclose their holdings. Our analysis shows that the average ownership stakes of the largest and the...