The primary purpose of this study is to evaluate the signaling powers of technology and traditional factors and their stability. The results show that traditional factors dominate the signaling process. In addition, they are also relatively stable over periods of changing investor's sentiment....

The average underpricing of Chinese IPOs is 267 percent, the highest of any major world market. Using a sample of 1,124 IPOs listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges between 1991 and 2000, we examine empirically the determinants of this extreme level of underpricing. We find it is...

This paper investigates the long-run stock returns of privatization initial public offering (IPO) firms using a sample of 241 privatization IPOs from 42 countries during the period 1981-2003. We compare one- three-, and five-year holding period returns of the privatization IPOs to those of the...

This study presents the first comprehensive compilation of the number of people around the world owning shares voluntarily. We document that at least 317 million people in 70 countries (24 developed and 46 emerging market nations) invest in equity of publically listed companies or mutual funds....

We study dividend policies and dividend flexibility and use the annual abnormal return methodology to investigate the impact of more or less flexible policies for stock returns. We focus on the European Union which accommodates two corporate governance systems. We show that common law companies...

This paper examines how legal risk, defined as the strength of creditor rights and legal enforcement, affects debt ownership concentration in the project finance loan market. Using a sample of 495 project finance loan tranches from 61 countries, worth $151 billion, we document high levels of...

Using a unique database of over 3400 listed industrial companies, we examine the evolution of dividend policy from 1989 to 2003 in the fifteen nations that were members of the European Union in May 2004. As in the United States, the fraction of European firms paying dividends declines...

Using a unique database of over 3400 listed industrial companies, we examine the evolution of dividend policy from 1989 to 2003 in the fifteen nations that were members of the European Union in May 2004. As in the United States, the fraction of European firms paying dividends declines...

This study compares the SEO activity of young dual- and single-class firms. Because they hold stock with superior voting rights, dual-class insiders weigh different costs and benefits when issuing equity. Most importantly, the marginal dilution of voting power resulting from an SEO is lower in...

This paper examines empirically whether the dividend initiation decisions of a sample of newly-public firms are best explained by the predictions of the Miller and Rock (1985) cash flow signalling model, or by the competing agency cost models presented by Easterbrook (1984), Jensen (1986), and...