Knowledge that Transforms

This paper studies The Netherlands' private sector self-regulation initiative (“The Peters Committee”) to improve corporate governance practices. We examine the relation between firm value and corporate governance characteristics before and after the private sector initiative. We find the initiative had no effect on corporate governance characteristics or their relationship with firm value. Event study results suggest the market was skeptical about the success of self-regulation of corporate governance practices in The Netherlands. Our results on The Netherlands self-regulation initiative suggest little should be expected from initiatives that rely on monitoring without enforcement (e.g., similar or weaker initiatives in other European Union (EU) countries).

We reexamine the post-listing puzzle by studying the stock performance of 2103 firms that moved from NASDAQ to NYSE or AMEX, or from AMEX to NYSE during 1973–1999. The matched four-factor regressions demonstrate that the listing firms do not underperform. Size-and-book-to-market matched factor regression finds that the “post-listing drift” is confined to the small set of firms moving from NASDAQ to AMEX during 1981–1990, within size deciles 3–6 and book-to-market quintiles 1–3. A further control of the industry effect is able to resolve the remaining abnormal returns. Our results are consistent with the pseudo market timing hypothesis in Schultz, (2003) [Schultz, P., 2003. Pseudo market timing and the long-run underperformance of IPOs. J. Fin. 58, 483–517.].

We compare the investment activities and sources of finance of venture capital (VC) funds in Germany, Israel, Japan and the United Kingdom. VC investments differ across countries in terms of their stage, sector and geographical focus. Sources of VC funds also differ across countries; for example, banks are particularly important in Germany and Japan, corporations in Israel, and pension funds in the United Kingdom. Although the differences in investments are related to funding sources—for example, bank and pension fund-backed VCs invest in later stage activities than individual and corporate backed funds—a large proportion of variation within as well as between countries is unrelated to sources of finance. Moreover, differences in the relation between funding source and VC activity are unrelated to the country's financial systems. We conclude that neither financial systems nor sources of finance are the main explanations for the pronounced differences in VC activities.