For a large number of companies from different countries, we analyze how company corporate governance practices and country regulatory regimes interact in terms of company valuation. We confirm that corporate governance plays a crucial role in efficient company monitoring and shareholder...

We investigate how company-level corporate governance practices and country-level legal investor protection jointly affect company performance. We find that in any legal regime there are a few specific governance practices that improve performance. Companies with good governance practices...

We examine the effectiveness of the "Comply or Explain" approach to corporate governance in the UK. Using a unique database of 245 non-financial companies for the period of 1998-2004, we find an increasing trend of compliance with the Combined Code, but a frequent use of standard explanations in...

Commodity-equity return co-movements rose dramatically during the Great Recession. This development took place following what has been dubbed the “financialization” of commodity markets. We first document changes since 1995 in the relative importance of financial institutions' activity in...

Credit rating agencies and auditors are complementary certification agents subject to a conflict of interest inherent in their compensation structure. We examine client firm credit ratings to test alternative hypotheses of abnormal audit fees. We predict and find both cross-sectional and time...

We examine the effectiveness of the "Comply or Explain" approach to corporate governance in the UK. Using a unique database of 245 non-financial companies for the period 1998-2004, we find an increasing trend of compliance with the Combined Code, but a frequent use of standard explanations in...

We study the governance choices of firms in a voluntary regulatory regime where we can directly observe the impact of ownership on corporate governance practices pertaining to the composition of the board of directors. We find that firms with a dominant shareholder are more likely to deviate...