We identify a firm’s growth type by its valuation volatility which proxies for the extent to which asymmetric information arises from growth opportunities rather than from assets-in-place. We show that firm investment style (measured by R&D/[Capex+R&D]) is persistent and positively aligned with growth type. The sensitivity of investment to cash flow has a monotonic negative relationship with gr...

BACKGROUND Healthcare financing should be equitable. Fairness in financial contribution and protection against financial risk is based on the notion that every household should pay a fair share. Health policy makers have long been concerned with protecting people from the possibility that ill health will lead to catastrophic financial payments and subsequent impoverishment. A number of studies ...

OBJECTIVE The Government of Swaziland decided to explore the feasibility of social health insurance (SHI) in order to enhance universal access to health services. We assess the financial feasibility of a possible SHI scheme in Swaziland. The SHI scenario presented is one that mobilises resources additional to the maintained Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MOHSW) budget. It is designed to...

The paper studies mechanisms through which a sudden stop in international credit flows may bring about financial and balance of payments crises. It is shown that these crises can occur even though the current account deficit is fully financed by foreign direct investment. However, equity and long-term bond financing may shield the economy from sudden stop crises. The paper also examines possibl...

Seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) are sales of stock after the initial public offering. They are a means to raise funds through the sale of stock rather than the issuance of additional debt. We propose a method to predict the characteristics of firms that undertake this form of financing. Our procedure is based on logistic regression where firm-specific variables are obtained from the perspectiv...

A strategic alliance is a hybrid organizational form that is between an arms length contract and a full-fledged merger between firms. In some alliances firms take a minority equity stake in the partner firm. We refer to these as equity alliances. Using data on 759 alliances, we examine the motivation for the use of equity in alliances. We study whether equity is intended to strengthen the contr...

In the first essay (joint work with Bryan Routledge), we calculate the value implications of suboptimal capital budgeting decisions in an asset-pricing model calibrated to match the standard asset pricing empirical properties – in particular, the time-variation in the equity premium. Specifically, we calculate that an investment policy that ignores the time variation in the equity premium, such...

  One of the main problems of SMEs is how to finance their investments. The role of banks in this regard is crucial, since they can be a type of sources of financing through lending credits directly to SMEs. The key role of the paper thus relies on analyzing the effect of SMEs financing by the Iranian banking system.   The objective of this paper is to determine the influence of loans demanded...