In the recent recession and current economic recovery, policymakers have supported housing prices, expecting that improvement in the balance sheets of banks and consumers will spur economic activity. Considering the period of 1988 through 2006, we document that banks which are active in strong housing markets increase mortgage lending and decrease commercial lending. Firms that borrow from thes...

We provide new rationales for corporate venturing (CV), based on competition for talented managers. As returns to venturing increase, …rms engage in CV for reasons other than capturing these returns. First, higher venturing returns increase managerial compensation, to which …rms respond by increasing the power of incentives. Managers increase e¤ort, prompting …rms to reallocate them to new vent...

I provide a micro-foundation for dynamically incomplete contracts that are renegotiated over time. The micro-foundation is based on showing that such contracts implement the optimal complete contract in a general dynamic model provided the players have “preference-for-robustness.” Preference-for-robustness is a way of modeling players perpetually having a fuzzy idea as time passes about events ...

We study the leverage of firms making large dividend increases. Over the five years following the dividend increase they raise leverage enough to finance the entire dividend increase for that period with debt. This is not explained by trade-off variables or the pecking order. The effect is greatest for big firms with low-powered incentives, suggesting an agency effect whereby they make large di...

This paper analyzes how property rights affect the allocation of firms’ available resources among different types of assets. In particular, we investigate empirically for a large number of countries whether firms in environments with more secure property rights allocate available resources more towards intangible assets and consequentially grow faster. We find that improved asset allocation due...

This paper examines how control and ownership structure affect share repurchases in an emerging market where controlling families derive large private benefits. Whereas firms with concentrated ownership often pay cash dividends, firms with weak control rights often repurchase shares. The magnitude of repurchase increases with weak control rights, but decreases with strong foreign ownership. The...

This paper studies the economic impact of the current global economic downturn on the household sector. Household budgets can be negatively affected by declines in nominal wages and increases in unemployment. We empirically test this effect for the Czech economy. As a result of the lack of individual data on the Czech household finances, micro data are simulated. Our analysis clearly points out...

This study examines the effect of corporate liquidity and investor protection on the relation between financial distress and equity returns using a European sample over the 2002-2016 period. The results show that returns are hump-shaped and decreasing for increasing default risk. This can be rationalized by corporate liquidity indicating that higher cash holdings decrease liquidity risk. Moreov...

Empirical evidence suggests that the voting premium in the Korean securities market is strongly related to the structure of corporate ownership. We find that the premium attached to voting stock is positively and significantly associated with the control value of a block of shares held by minority shareholders. We also find that the premium is negatively related to both the fraction of shares t...

We construct a Risk Management Index (RMI) to measure the strength and independence of the risk management function at bank holding companies (BHCs). U.S. BHCs with higher RMI before the onset of the financial crisis have lower tail risk, lower non-performing loans, and better operating and stock return performance during the financial crisis years. Over the period 1995 to 2010, BHCs with a hig...