We develop and test the hypothesis that foreign direct investment promotes corporate governance spillovers in the host country. Using firm-level data on cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and corporate governance in 22 countries, we find that crossborder M&A activity is associated with subsequent improvements in the governance of the target firms’ local rivals. This positive spillover ...

This article explores the scale and behaviour of abnormal equity returns for 12 regional electricity companies (RECs) in the UK. Using the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and the Kalman Filter, we estimate time variation in abnormal returns (alpha) and in systematic risk (beta) coefficients. Substantial time variation in both returns and risk is demonstrated, with strong evidence of regulato...

We investigate how Germany’s mandated 50% labor representation on supervisory boards affects layoffs and wages during adverse industry shocks. We hypothesize that parity-codetermination helps the implementation of implicit contracts that insure employees against adverse shocks. We estimate difference-in-differences in employment and wages using panel data at the establishment level. The results...

This paper investigates the role of banking supervision in controlling bank risk. Banking supervision is measured in terms of enforcement outputs (i.e., on-site audits and sanctions). Our results show an inverted U-shaped relationship between on-site audits and bank risk, while the relationship between sanctions and risk appears to be linear and negative. We also consider the combined effect of...

‘‘New Tigers” (including city commercial banks) outperform state-owned commercial banks burdened with non-performing loans from unprofitable state-owned enterprises. We study whether this is solely due to superior corporate governance (multiple shareholders versus total government ownership) or also to the favorable environment (the New Tigers target affluent China, while state-owned commercial...

This paper investigates the relationship between an integrated corporate governance (CG) index and financial performance using a sample of 169 South African (SA) listed corporations between 2002 and 2007. We find a statistically significant and positive association between a broad set of good CG practices and financial performance. In a series of sensitivity analyses, we find that our results a...

This paper examines the economic consequences of tightening auditing standards. We recognize that both auditors’ incentives and expertise are relevant for audit effectiveness. On one hand, tighter auditing standards counter the misbehavior of rogue auditors. On the other hand, tighter standards restrict auditors’exercise of professional judgement, leads to auditors’compliance mentality, and red...

This paper analyses a longitudinal dataset on legal protection of shareholders over a 36 year period, 1970-2005 for four advanced countries, UK, France, Germany and the US. It examines two aspects of the legal origin hypothesis whether shareholder protection is higher in the common law countries (UK and USA) than in the civil law countries (France and Germany) and whether shareholder protection...

Article history: Received 1 September 2013 Accepted 13 August 2014 Available online 20 August 2014 This paper investigates the link between firm headquarters location and its stock return co-movements in a full sample of Chinese listed firms from 1999 to 2007. The empirical results show a significant stock return co-movement pattern for firms located in the same province. And both firm-level fa...