Three Essays in Financial Markets. The Bright Side of Financial Derivatives: Options Trading and Firm Innovation


Book Description

Do financial derivatives enhance or impede innovation? We aim to answer this question by examining the relationship between equity options markets and standard measures of firm innovation. Our baseline results show that firms with more options trading activity generate more patents and patent citations per dollar of R&D invested. We then investigate how more active options markets affect firms' innovation strategy. Our results suggest that firms with greater trading activity pursue a more creative, diverse and risky innovation strategy. We discuss potential underlying mechanisms and show that options appear to mitigate managerial career concerns that would induce managers to take actions that boost short-term performance measures. Finally, using several econometric specifications that try to account for the potential endogeneity of options trading, we argue that the positive effect of options trading on firm innovation is causal.




Corporate Governance Matters


Book Description

Corporate Governance Matters gives corporate board members, officers, directors, and other stakeholders the full spectrum of knowledge they need to implement and sustain superior governance. Authored by two leading experts, this comprehensive reference thoroughly addresses every component of governance. The authors carefully synthesize current academic and professional research, summarizing what is known, what is unknown, and where the evidence remains inconclusive. Along the way, they illuminate many key topics overlooked in previous books on the subject. Coverage includes: International corporate governance. Compensation, equity ownership, incentives, and the labor market for CEOs. Optimal board structure, tradeoffs, and consequences. Governance, organizational strategy, business models, and risk management. Succession planning. Financial reporting and external audit. The market for corporate control. Roles of institutional and activist shareholders. Governance ratings. The authors offer models and frameworks demonstrating how the components of governance fit together, with concrete examples illustrating key points. Throughout, their balanced approach is focused strictly on two goals: to “get the story straight,” and to provide useful tools for making better, more informed decisions.




Corporate Governance


Book Description

A detailed look at the importance of corporate governance in today's business world The importance of corporate governance became dramatically clear at the beginning of the twenty-first century as a series of corporate meltdowns from managerial fraud, misconduct, and negligence caused a massive loss of shareholder wealth. As part of the Robert W. Kolb Series in Finance, this book provides a comprehensive view of the shareholder-manager relationship and examines the current state of governance mechanisms in mitigating the principal-agent conflict. This book also offers informed suggestions and predictions about the future direction of corporate governance. Relies on recent research findings to provide guidance through the maze of theories and concepts Uses a structured approach to put corporate governance in perspective Addresses essential issues related to corporate governance including the idea of principal-agent conflict, role of the board of directors, executive compensation, corporate monitoring, proxy contests and corporate takeovers, and regulatory intervention Corporate governance is an essential part of mainstream finance. If you need to gain a better understanding of this topic, look no further than this book.




Essays on the Quality of Audited Financial Statements


Book Description

The dissertation consists of four essays on the quality of audited financial statements. The first analysis investigates the association between several regulations of the audit market and earnings characteristics. The second essay differentiates between different drivers of audit quality after an auditor change by comparing the effects of voluntary and mandatory auditor changes. The third study analyses the different strategies of Big4 and non-Big4 auditors in dealing with Level 3 fair values. The fourth part examines banks' valuation behavior concerning Level 3 fair values.




Hard Lessons in Corporate Governance


Book Description

Examines how and why modern corporate governance practices fail to deliver better economic, managerial, environmental, or social outcomes.










The Oxford Handbook of Corporate Law and Governance


Book Description

Corporate law and corporate governance have been at the forefront of regulatory activities across the world for several decades now, and are subject to increasing public attention following the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. The Oxford Handbook of Corporate Law and Governance provides the global framework necessary to understand the aims and methods of legal research in this field. Written by leading scholars from around the world, the Handbook contains a rich variety of chapters that provide a comparative and functional overview of corporate governance. It opens with the central theoretical approaches and methodologies in corporate law scholarship in Part I, before examining core substantive topics in corporate law, including shareholder rights, takeovers and restructuring, and minority rights in Part II. Part III focuses on new challenges in the field, including conflicts between Western and Asian corporate governance environments, the rise of foreign ownership, and emerging markets. Enforcement issues are covered in Part IV, and Part V takes a broader approach, examining those areas of law and finance that are interwoven with corporate governance, including insolvency, taxation, and securities law as well as financial regulation. The Handbook is a comprehensive, interdisciplinary resource placing corporate law and governance in its wider context, and is essential reading for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers in the field.







Compliance & Conviction


Book Description

Examines the complexities of corporate governance, addressing how challenges that affect corporate directors also impact stakeholders.