This paper examines the effectiveness of six institutional quality measures, namely corruption control, effective government, political stability, regulatory quality, rule of law and voice and accountability, in inhibiting self-rewarding behaviour of boards in terms of their compensation as well as in influencing the likelihood of disclosure of individual executive salaries in IPO listings pros...

This paper examines the joint impact of firmand country-level factors on the international plant location decisions of semiconductor firms from 1994–2002. We find that these factors interact to influence the location decisions of firms investing abroad in a given host country. Firms with more advanced technological capabilities are more likely to make investments in countries with greater techn...

Almost 30 years have passed since the initial publication of Ivan Illich’s Limits to Medicine. Medical Nemesis: The Expropriation of Health. A medieval historian who has been described as one of the world’s great thinkers, Illich introduced his iconoclastic work with the indictment, “the medical establishment has become a major threat to health.” The book makes a passing reference to radiology ...

The Spanish home ownership sector has been hit hard by the economic crisis. Repossessions stand at around half a million in the period from 2008 to 2014. This article investigates how the authorities, both at the level of the Spanish state and of the autonomous communities (regions), have responded to this problem. We investigated whether they assist troubled home owners and aim to design a les...

Land expropriation, during the rapid urbanization process in China, results in rural conflicts and presents barriers in sustainable development. Collective strategies of major stakeholders should be clearly understood for finding effective measures to cope with conflicts. However, the existing studies usually assume two types of stakeholders, which overlook the complicated practices as, at leas...

Using a large sample of loans initiated by firms targeted by hedge fund activists during 19942008, we show that hedge fund activism has significant impacts on firms’ bank loan contracts. After the targeting announcement and relative to firms that are not targeted, the targeted firms pay significantly higher spreads, are more likely to be required to secure their loans, face more covenant restri...

Which public policies and ownership structures enhance the governance of banks? Is the governance of banks different from other corporations? This paper constructs a new database on the ownership of banks internationally and then assesses the ramifications of ownership, shareholder protection laws, and supervisory/regulatory policies on bank valuations. Except in a few countries with very stron...

This paper examines the relationship between ethnic heterogeneity and the demand for formal land tenure in urban Tanzania. Using a unique census of two highlyfractionalized unplanned settlements in Dar es Salaam, I show that households located near coethnics are significantly less likely to purchase a limited form of land tenure recently offered by the government. I attempt to address one of th...

Landless peasants have been a great concern for both the government and academics in China. Entrepreneurship is promoted as one of the most important approaches to achieving civilization and urbanization. However, few studies have systematically examined the influencing factors of landless peasants’ entrepreneurial intention (EI). This research gap presents barriers for making effective policie...

We use fiscal data on 2,468 oil extraction agreements in 38 countries to study tax contracts between resource-rich countries and independent oil companies. We analyze why expropriations occur and what determines the degree of oil price exposure of host countries. With asymmetric information about a country’s expropriation cost even optimal contracts feature expropriations. Near-linearity in the...