This paper investigates whether gender diversity in the boardroom is associated with corporate cash holdings and whether investor protection moderates the effect of corporate board gender diversity on corporate cash holdings. Using 20,750 firm-year observations from 33 countries, our analyses...

In this paper, we consider a dynamic asset pricing model in a cross-sectional economy with two firms where a controlling shareholder cannot divert output in one firm with perfect investor protection for minority shareholders and where he can divert a fraction of output in the other firm with...

Does ownership by private equity firms encourage or deter financial misconduct? We examine this issue by analyzing the records of individual financial advisers around buyouts of investment advisory firms by private equity. Our estimates suggest that private equity ownership leads to an increase...

Short-term debt can reduce potential agency conflicts between managers and shareholders by exposing managers to more frequent monitoring by the credit market. Using an international dataset, we examine whether internal monitoring can substitute for external monitoring through the use of...

This paper argues that the key mechanisms protecting retail investors' financial stake in their portfolio investments are indirect. They do not rely on actions by the investors or by any private actor directly charged with looking after investors' interests. Rather, they are provided by the...

The paper conducts a concise yet comprehensive examination of the Chinese regulatory regime for takeovers of listed companies, covering important rules such as the mandatory bid rule, tender offer rules, disclosure of substantial shareholding, and takeover defences. In evaluating the Chinese...

We present a model of the effects of legal protection of minority shareholders and of cash flow ownership by a controlling shareholder on the valuation of firms. We then test this model using a sample of 371 large firms from 27 wealthy economies. Consistent with the model, we find evidence of...

We document that corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities increase the cost of equity in East Asia. Further, the effect is driven by economies with weak investor protection. Our findings are robust to alternative variable measurements, accounting for endogeneity of CSR, and various...

In this book chapter, I show that, while the U.S. systems relies on factors that are not determined by regulation, which I call market forces, to shape sophisticated investor protection standards, Israel prescribes such arrangements by the heavy hand of the regulator. I substantiate my argument...

We introduce imperfect creditor protection in a multi-country version of Schumpeterian growth theory with technology transfer. The theory predicts that the growth rate of any country with more than some critical level of financial development will converge to the growth rate of the world...

Overtime, some of the core provisions that traditionally identify, in the context of MiFID, the investors’ protection regime, have become a template for the protection of consumers and “end-users” of financial services and products in other areas of EU Legislation. Those same provisions...

This study investigates the nexus between investor protection and dividend policy for 517 listed non-financial firms operating in Asian countries between the 2008- 2017 period. The dynamic panel data model (System-GMM) reveals that stronger investor protection is associated with higher dividend...

We model how lobbying by interest groups affects the level of investor protection. In our model, insiders in existing public companies, institutional investors (financial intermediaries), and entrepreneurs who plan to take companies public in the future, compete for influence over the...

In the presence of strong minority shareholder protection mechanisms, shareholders may become placid and even inattentive with regards to their firms’ nonoperating activities in the hope that those mechanisms serve to assure agents’ incentive compatibility. Relying on a cross-country panel...

A system of investor protection rests on a theory of which investors need protection. This chapter surveys the composition and perception of individual investors in American capital markets from 1900 to the present. The retail investor base has expanded remarkably during that time. Beyond the...

Studies have shown a gap between investors’ intentions and preferences on the one hand, and their actual behaviour on the other hand. This gap has been attributed to a perception of high volatility and less profitability in ESG investments, combined with a lack of knowledge and availability of...

SEC 10b-5 has been successful in prosecuting corporate fraud, mainly because the regulation was written broadly, casting a wide net. 10b-5 also can be thought as an enactment of a moral principle, ‘do not steal.’ If a rule that materializes a moral principle proves to be effective, why...

Embedding securities token offering (STO) within a law and a regulatory framework is critical for its market to develop with investor confidence. The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) current laws and regulations, which were designed for the initial public offering (IPO) market, are...

This study investigates the effect of corporate governance reforms protecting minority shareholders on the firm value measured by Tobin’s Q. Using the difference-in-differences estimation and a large international sample from 65 countries for the period 2005-2018, the results show that the...

This article considers the implications of a March, 2015 ruling of a tribunal struck under the Chapter 11 investor protection provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The majority of the tribunal found that Canada violated Articles 1102 and 1105 of NAFTA when the federal...

Using a parsimonious measure of investor protection constructed from fund organizational characteristics, this paper documents that companies targeted by activists with better investor protection structures outperform those targeted by poor-investor-protection activists by roughly 10% per year....

We examine the efficacy of public enforcement in weak investor protection countries by examining the outcomes of a comprehensive public enforcement campaign in China. The campaign, launched in 2007, was designed to help enforce China's first mandatory Corporate Governance Code, issued in 2002....

Earlier studies show that an increase in compliance costs following investor protection reforms induces public firms to delist from stock exchanges. Using a difference-in-differences approach, I show in this paper that a decrease in the private benefits of control following investor protection...

The duty of corporate fiduciaries to act in the best interests of the firm lies at the heart of most stories about corporate law. It has occupied the center of what is probably the longest and most extensive debate in corporate law: whether the duties should be owed to shareholders alone or to...

The paper discusses how asset managers are regulated in the UK in order to provide investor protection and market confidence. Fiduciary duties and the duty of care in the English common law, statutory laws, the rules of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), and other industry codes are examined...

Chinese currency policy has had a strong impact on the value of investors' portfolios in recent years. On August 11, 2015, the People's Bank of China announced a new exchange rate policy where the RMB central parity rate against the USD would be determined each morning by the previous day's...

This study draws on the investor protection literature to examine differences in a country's information environment that are likely to explain cross country variation in the extent to which macroeconomic forecasters take account of current earnings when forecasting future growth in GDP. Using a...

Corwin v. KKR, one of many recent cases aiming to mitigate the “deal tax” in M&A represented by baseless litigation, is considered one of the most important corporate law decisions of the 2000s. Corwin shields directors from the enhanced scrutiny of Revlon in favor of the business judgment...

This paper explores the duties owed by investments managers in the UK, comprised of duties derived from equity, common law, regulation and contract. It offers a critical analysis of how private law duties apply to investment managers, and discusses the challenges of applying such general duties...

During the past decade, equity crowdfunding (ECF) has emerged as an alternative funding channel for startup firms. In Germany, the Small Investor Protection Act became binding in July 2015, with the legislative goal to protect investors engaging in this new asset class. Since then, investors...

The new Brazilian Company Law, enacted in 1976, increased the protection of minority shareholder rights, providing an experiment to test alternative agency theories of dividends. Are dividends an outcome of the effective legal protection of shareholders? Or are dividends a substitute for legal...

Chinese currency policy has had a strong impact on the value of investors' portfolios in recent years. On August 11, 2015, the People's Bank of China announced a new exchange rate policy where the RMB central parity rate against the USD would be determined each morning by the previous day's...

Here, we use a sample of firms from 30 countries during the period 1995-2013 to examine the relationship between net operating working capital (NWC) and firm value. Specifically, we show that the value of NWC varies across countries and that it depends on both investor protection and a country's...

During the past decade, equity crowdfunding (ECF) has emerged as an alternative funding channel for startup firms. In Germany, the Small Investor Protection Act became binding in July 2015, with the legislative goal to protect investors engaging in this new asset class. Since then, investors...