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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Regulatory Incentives and the Thrift Crisis: Dividends, Mutual‐to‐Stock Conversions, and Financial Distress
Published: 09/01/1996 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1996.tb04070.x
RANDALL S. KROSZNER, PHILIP E. STRAHAN
During the 1980s, insolvency of individual thrifts and the thrift deposit insurer created severe incentive problems. Lacking cash to close insolvent thrifts, regulators induced nearly $10 billion of private capital to flow into the industry through mutual‐to‐stock conversions. We test a theory of how regulators encouraged capital‐impaired mutual thrifts to convert by permitting them to pay dividends rather than rebuild capital. We estimate the costs of this policy and interpret the 1991 Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act as requiring regulators to impose restraints on depository institutions parallel to debt covenants that prevent capital distributions by nonfinancial firms experiencing distress.
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.