The Journal of Finance

The Journal of Finance publishes leading research across all the major fields of finance. It is one of the most widely cited journals in academic finance, and in all of economics. Each of the six issues per year reaches over 8,000 academics, finance professionals, libraries, and government and financial institutions around the world. The journal is the official publication of The American Finance Association, the premier academic organization devoted to the study and promotion of knowledge about financial economics.

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Corporate Bankruptcy and Managers' Self‐Serving Behavior

Published: 09/01/1989   |   DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1989.tb02639.x

CLAUDIO F. LODERER, DENNIS P. SHEEHAN

We investigate whether insiders of bankrupt firms hold less stock or reduce their stockholdings compared to what we observed for insiders of similar firms that do not go bankrupt. We find little evidence of such time‐series and cross‐sectional differences in spite of the fact that the stock value of bankrupt firms falls by more than ninety percent in the five years preceding bankruptcy. One implication of our results is that the amount of stock owned and the magnitude of the trades undertaken by corporate insiders of both bankrupt and nonbankrupt firms appear to provide no information about firm value.


Were the Good Old Days That Good? Changes in Managerial Stock Ownership Since the Great Depression

Published: 12/17/2002   |   DOI: 10.1111/0022-1082.00114

Clifford G. Holderness, Randall S. Kroszner, Dennis P. Sheehan

We document that ownership by officers and directors of publicly traded firms is on average higher today than earlier in the century. Managerial ownership has risen from 13 percent for the universe of exchange‐listed corporations in 1935, the earliest year for which such data exist, to 21 percent in 1995. We examine in detail the robustness of the increase and explore hypotheses to explain it. Higher managerial ownership has not substituted for alternative corporate governance mechanisms. Lower volatility and greater hedging opportunities associated with the development of financial markets appear to be important factors explaining the increase in managerial ownership.