This paper studies how institutional characteristics of Specified Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) are related to their post-merger survival. SPACs are unique financial firms that conduct the IPO with the solely purpose to use the proceeds to acquire another private company. Paper finds...

We analyse whether different levels of country ties to Europe among the rating agencies Moody's, S&P, and Fitch affect the assignment of sovereign credit ratings, using the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis of 2009-2012 as a natural laboratory. We find that Fitch, the rating agency among the "Big...

We study the role of informed trading in a fragmented financial market under the absence of inter-market price priority. Due to frictions in traders’ market access, liquidity providers on alternative trading platforms may be exposed to an increased adverse selection risk. As a consequence, the...

This paper studies the stock market response to corporate downgrades by S&P, Moody's and Fitch between 1999 and 2011. The empirical evidence shows that cumulative abnormal returns around downgrades become significantly smaller (in absolute value) after the release in 2003 of the Securities and...

I investigate the linkage between liquidity provision by Nasdaq market makers and analysts in the same firm. Using three measures of market activity, I find that Nasdaq firms are more likely to provide buy side liquidity in anticipation of upgrades in the period 1999-2000. ECN activity supports...

Lack of transparency in securitization transactions significantly contributed to the severe financial crisis of 20072009. To increase transparency we propose a new mechanism: financial claims with fingerprints. They would allow market participants at each stage of the securitization process to...

External finance is central for nascent entrepreneurs, people in the process of starting new ventures. We argue that nascent entrepreneurs use patents and prototypes in order to signal their ability to appropriate the returns from their innovation as well as the project´s feasibility. Our...

Certifiers contribute to the sound functioning of markets by reducing asymmetric information. They, however, have been heavily criticized during the 2008-09 financial crisis. This paper investigates on which side of the market a monopolistic profit-maximizing certifier offers his service. If the...

This paper sets out to analyze the influence of different types of venture capitalists on the performance of their portfolio firms around and after IPO. We investigate the hypothesis that different governance structures, objectives, and track records of different types of VCs have a significant...

We analyze the desinvestment decision of venture capitalists in the course of an IPO of their portfolio firms. The capital market learns of the project quality only in the period following the IPO. Venture capitalists with high-quality firms face a trade-off between immediately selling their...