We present color magnitude diagrams of four blue massive and compact star clusters in M31: G38, G44, G94, and G293. The diagrams of the four clusters reveal a well-populated upper main sequence and various numbers of supergiants. The U-B and B-V colors of the upper main sequence stars are used to determine reddening estimates of the different lines of sight in the M31 disk. Reddening values ran...

Article history: Received 4 July 2009 Received in revised form 26 May 2012 Accepted 3 August 2012 Available online 5 October 2012 Controlling for country-level governance, we investigate how firms' corporate governance influences financing constraints. Using firm-level corporate governance rankings across 14 emerging markets, we find that better corporate governance lowers the dependence of eme...

This study examines how industry-specific managerial experience affects firms’ innovation performance in the context of different institutional environments. Based on firm-level data from 27 Central and Eastern European countries we identify a robust positive relationship between industry-specific experience of the top-manager and the decision to innovate as well as the share of new product-rel...

This paper assesses quantitatively the impact of legal institutions on entrepreneurial firm dynamics. Owners choose firm size, financial structure and default to manage risk. We find: (i) Less risk averse entrepreneurs run bigger firms and it is optimal for them to incorporate, while more risk averse entrepreneurs run smaller firms and generally are better off remaining unincorporated. (ii) Mor...

Using banks’ internal models for regulatory purposes, while aimed at making capital requirements more accurate, invites regulatory arbitrage. I develop a framework to study the strategic selection of risk models, and derive predictions in line with recent empirical evidence. I also study optimal regulations. Penalizing banks with low risk-weights when they suffer abnormal losses is a powerful t...

I study the optimal architecture of bank supervision in a federal system. A central supervisor gets information about a bank, for instance through stress-testing, and decides whether an on-site examination should be performed by a local or a central authority. Local supervisors have lower inspection costs, but do not internalize crossborder externalities. The optimal degree of centralization de...

We use panel data on the number of new firm registrations in 92 countries to study how the magnitude of reforms affects its impact on new firm registrations. We find that small reforms, in general less than 40% reduction in costs, days or procedures required for business registration, do not have a significant effect on new firm creation. This suggests that small reforms do not have the intende...

This paper reviews the economic theory of regulation and surveys the empirical evidence on its application to past and recent changes in U.S. securities regulation. The theory provides multiple potential motives for regulation and cautions the empirical researcher against naïve modeling of the costs and benefits of regulatory change. Moreover, the nature of the regulatory process compounds the ...

ABSTRACT Although determinants of cross-border merger and acquisitions (M&As) have received substantial attention in the literature, research examining effect tax system characteristics on M&As is more limited. Cross-border implications for both acquiring firm target firm. Because firms evaluate investments based expected after-tax returns, I expect that managers consider potential savi...