Showing papers by "Thomas Schmid published in 2014"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyzed how founders and their families influence R&D intensity in listed German firms and found that the impact of family control via voting rights is negative, but mostly not significant.
110 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine whether cultural differences between countries help in explaining firms' hedging decisions and find that culture has a strong impact on the hedging behavior of firms.
88 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors proposed a novel approach to measure the value that shareholders assign to financial flexibility, and found that firms for which shareholders consider financial flexibility more valuable have lower dividend payouts, prefer share repurchases to dividends and exhibit lower leverage ratios.
72 citations
01 Jan 2014
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used a board dataset of 35,000 firms across 53 countries and found that female board members lead to higher valuations in more developed countries, which may be explained by a more efficient selection process of female board member in these countries and by investors' anticipation of future quota legislation.
Abstract: Despite intensive research on mandatory quotas, little is know about valuation e ects of voluntary female board representation. Using a novel board dataset of 35,000 firms across 53 countries, we find that female board members lead to higher valuations in more developed countries. This result may be explained by a more e cient selection process of female board members in these countries and by investors’ anticipation of future quota legislation. Despite the positive valuation e ect, women only account for less than 10% of all board positions, which cannot be explained by a country’s level of development. Rather, firms located in countries with a more masculine culture tend to appoint fewer female board members. Thus, culture seems to shape the glass ceiling for the voluntary appointment of female board members. Beyond this glass ceiling, however, only the level of development matters.
3 citations