B. Burcin Yurtoglu

WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management | WHU · Chair of Corporate Finance

We use a web-based asset market experiment to study whether ESG information affects the portfolio choices of retail investors. We find a significantly higher portfolio allocation to stocks with ESG information in the order of 11 percentage points compared to a control group where no ESG information is released. ESG information impacts retail invest...

How do board characteristics influence the risk of bankruptcy? We study this question by estimating classic Z-Score models using panel data comprising 2519 listed non-financial firms from 29 European countries over the 2012–2020 period. We found that board independence is associated with lower risk of bankruptcy. In contrast, employee representativ...

This study investigates how heterogeneity in family ownership affects the internationalization of business groups at different levels of market development. Building on the family business and corporate governance literatures, we hypothesize and find that coalitional family ownership increases, but majority family ownership decreases, the degree of...

We investigate the effect of team formation and task characteristics on performance in high-stakes team tasks. In two natural field experiments, we found that randomly assigned teams performed significantly better than self-selected teams in a task that allowed for an unequal work distribution. If the task required the two team members to contribut...

This paper provides insights into the inner workings of internal corporate M&A teams using survey evidence from 65 firms from Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. We find that internal teams create value, especially relative to external advisors, by directing transaction rationales, screening targets, and employing performance metrics to assess post-...

We study the relationship between female representation on boards and firm value and profitability in Turkey from 2011 to 2018, relying on hand-collected data covering the vast majority of listed firms. We build several proxies of female representation on boards and find no evidence that female directors predict firm value and profitability using b...

In this paper, we show how corporate governance reforms and research have been mutually reinforcing in emerging markets and propose a research agenda going forward. Acknowledging the by now broad recognition of corporate governance as a key development driver, we show how work on corporate governance in emerging markets has led research globally by...

We analyze a unique source of media data to assess the influence of different topics of corporate news on costs of financing for a sample of large European and US firms from 2006 to 2016. We distinguish between volume (number of news), tonality (positive, neutral, negative), source (financial and mass media) and focus on ESG and report the followin...

Pharmaceutical firms frequently attract political attention due to their high accounting profitability. We study the U.S. pharmaceutical industry to test the two opposing views of how regulators use accounting information in the political process: The public interest hypothesis predicts that while regulators act in the public interest, they may fin...

We analyze a unique source of media data to assess the influence of different topics of corporate news on costs of financing for a sample of large European and US firms from 2006 to 2016. We distinguish between volume (number of news), tonality (positive, neutral, negative), source (financial and mass media) and focus on ESG and report the followin...

Drawing from the family business perspective, this study provides insights into how the heterogeneity arising from founding family structures explains why particular business groups grow extensively, while others faced with similar external market conditions do not, and how the effects of founding family structure change over time. We test our hypo...

Using stock market data of 10,550 publicly listed companies between 1987 and 2012, we study the marginal returns on investment for a large sample of pharmaceutical firms and compare them with returns on investment of firms from other industries. We also disentangle effects of different types of investments on total returns, namely, investment in ad...

We develop a Clawback Strength Index and show that while some firms adopt unambiguous and strong clawback provisions, others adopt weak ones. We find that strong clawback adopters experience improvements in financial reporting quality, fewer CEO turnovers, and lower CEO pay. We advance two possible explanations: First, clawback strength may be prim...

Purpose There is evidence that corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices predict higher firm value, but little evidence on which specific aspects of CSR drive this relationship. The purpose of this paper is to study this question in a sample drawn from 35 countries over 2003-2016. Design/methodology/approach The authors employ a research d...

Some bidders voluntarily announce a merger negotiation before the definitive agreement. We propose an “announce-to-signal” explanation to these early announcements: they allow bidders to signal to target shareholders high synergies so as to overcome negotiation frictions and improve success rates. Consistent with signaling, we show that negotiation...

Many studies of firm-level corporate governance rely on aggregate “indices” to measure underlying, unobserved governance. But we are not confident that we know how to build these indices. Often we are unsure both as to what is “good” governance, and how one can proxy for this vague concept using observable measures. We conduct an exploratory analys...

We study the corporate governance practices of Turkish public firms from 2006 to 2012, relying on hand-collected data covering the vast majority of listed firms. We build a Turkey Corporate Governance Index, TCGI, composed of subindices for board structure, board procedure, disclosure, ownership, and shareholder rights. TCGI predicts higher market...

We examine the reasons why some bidders choose to voluntarily announce a merger negotiation before the signature of a definitive agreement. We propose an “announce-to-signal” explanation: early announcements allow bidders to signal to the target shareholders high synergy of the transaction, so as to overcome negotiation frictions and improve succes...

There is evidence that a broad measure of corporate governance predicts higher firm values in emerging markets, but little evidence on which specific aspects of governance drive that overall relationship. We study that question by asking which aspects of corporate governance consistently predict firm market value across four major emerging markets...

This codebook and the related dataset and statistical code accompanies Bernard Black, Antonio Gledson de Carvalho, Vikramaditya Khanna, Woochan Kim and B. Burcin Yurtoglu, Methods for Multicountry Studies of Corporate Governance: Evidence from the BRIKT Countries, 183 Journal of Econometrics 230-240 (2014), and explains the accompanying replication...

Pharmaceutical firms are frequently in the center of political debate due to their high accounting profitability. We show that abnormal profitability in the pharmaceutical industry is a kind of optical illusion created by accounting standards for investment in research and development and their influence on reported accounting profit and book equit...

We investigate the degree to which implementing a clawback policy, a special part of the executive's compensation contract, is an adequate governance mechanism to deter executives from misbehavior and to recover excess-pay. By focusing on the firm-level heterogeneity in the structure of clawbacks, we recognize that firms have considerable discretio...

Business groups play a large, sometimes dominant economic role in many countries. A number of studies find an association between firm-level corporate governance and market value, but none study the role of business group identity in firm level corporate governance or the value of “group governance.” We begin to fill that gap through a case study o...

This paper is a sequel to the “Sustainable Investment in Turkey, 2010” report (IFC, 2011). The original report provided a review of the then current state of the sustainable investment (SI) in Turkey and analysed the institutional prerequisites and interventions that would encourage better allocation of financial capital to sustainable firms. This...

Pharmaceutical firms are frequently in the center of political debate due to their high accounting profitability. We show that abnormal profitability in the pharmaceutical industry is a kind of optical illusion created by accounting standards for investment in research and development and their influence on reported accounting profit and book equit...

We discuss the perils in multicountry studies of corporate governance (CG), focusing on emerging markets. The existing studies are massively multicountry studies, which cover many firms across many countries, but rely on the same limited governance elements in each countries, have few firm-level control variables, and use pure-cross-sectional data....

What determines the tendency of international institutional investors to participate in the general assemblies of companies they invest in and cast their vote? Using a sample of 62 countries, we show that measures of investor protection, better disclosure, stronger property rights protection and judicial efficiency positively affect these tendencie...

We argue that stock and bond market booms and merger waves are both driven by increases in optimism in financial markets and discuss two behavioral hypotheses, the managerial discretion and overvaluation hypotheses that claim that merger waves are driven by market optimism. Empirical support for the managerial theory is provided by evidence that th...

This paper reviews the relationships between corporate governance and economic development and well-being. It finds that better-governed corporate frameworks benefit firms through greater access to financing, lower cost of capital, better firm performance, and more favorable treatment of all stakeholders. Numerous studies agree that these channe...

This study addresses the question of why the observed diversification patterns of family business groups (FBGs) in response to major economic and institutional developments in emerging markets contradict the predictions of the dominant theoretical perspectives. We explain how environmental developments and groups’ reputational effects, as well as t...

The Second International conference on corporate Governance in emerging Markets is one in a series of academic events organized by the Emerging Markets Corporate Governance Network (EMCGN). The Global Corporate Governance Forum (GCGF) at the IFC endorses and supports the Network, which was first convened by Professor Stijn Claessens in 2001. The bi...

Sermaye Piyasası Kurulu 30 Aralık 2011 ve 11 Şubat 2012 tarihlerinde yayınladığı Seri IV, No: 56 ve 57 sayılı tebliğlerle 2003 yılında ‘uy yada açıkla’ yaklaşımı ile yayınladığı Kurumsal Yönetim İlkeleri’ni yeniledi ve ilkelerin bir kısmını 654 sayılı kanun hükmündeki kararnamenin kendisine verdiği yetkilere dayanarak halka açık şirketler için uyul...

This paper reviews recent research on corporate governance, with a special focus on emerging markets. It finds that better corporate frameworks benefit firms through greater access to financing, lower cost of capital, better performance, and more favorable treatment of all stakeholders. Numerous studies show these channels to operate at the level o...

OBJECTIVES: Price regulation for drugs is often justified by allegedly high profits of the pharmaceutical industry. While older explanations emphasize the importance of market-entry barriers and monopoly power, we argue that high profits are mainly due to measurement errors that arise from the treatment of research and development (R&D) investments...

The Third International Conference on Corporate Governance in Emerging Markets is one in a series of academic events organized by the Emerging Markets Corporate Governance Network (EMCGN). The Global Corporate Governance Forum at IFC endorses and supports the Network, which was first convened by Professor Stijn Claessens in 2001. The biannual acade...

Zusammenfassung Wir zeigen anhand aggregierter Länderdaten, dass ein starker Anlegerschutz asymmetrische Informations- und Agency-Probleme in der Finanzierung von F&E-Investitionen mildert. Länder mit einem starken Anlegerschutz weisen daher höhere F&E-Investitionen auf als Länder, in denen es für Anleger schwerer ist, ihre Interessen rechtlich dur...

(WP version of the EER-2011 article. See the EER for full version) This paper applies a novel methodology to a unique dataset of large concentrations during the period 1990-2002 to assess merger control’s effectiveness. By using data gathered from several sources and employing different evaluation techniques, we analyze the economic effects of the...

This report has been prepared as a part of the Sustainable Investment Program of IFC’s Sustainable Business Advisory Department. The main objectives of this report are as follows:1. To understand and provide a review of the current state of the Sustainable Investment (SI) market in Turkey.2. To identify the drivers and obstacles for sustainable inv...

In this paper we try to explain the high profitability of the pharmaceutical industry. While older explanations emphasize the importance of market-entry barriers and monopoly power, we argue that it is mainly due to measurement errors that arise from the treatment of R&D investments and intangible capital by conventional accouynting methods. In an...

The Group brings together staff from investment support and advisory operations into a single, global team. This unified team advises on all aspects of corporate governance and offers targeted client services in areas such as increasing board effectiveness, improving the control environment, and family businesses governance. The Group also helps su...

A large number of empirical studies in the U.S. report that there is no cross-sectional relationship between board composition and firm performance. On the other hand, a relatively small but growing literature on boards in emerging market corporations shows that a higher level of board independence is associated with both firm actions which are con...

The fi ndings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this publication should not be attributed in any manner to the International Finance Corporation, to its affi liated organizations, or to members of its board of Executive Directors or the countries they represent. The International Finance Corporation does not guarantee the data included...

This paper presents empirical evidence about the ability of event studies to capture mergers' ex-post profitability as measured by accounting data. We use a sample of large horizontal concentrations during the period 1990-2002 involving 482 firms either as merging firms or competitors, and contrast a measure of the mergers' profitability based on s...

Bu makale yönetişim sistemleri ve ülkelerin ekonomik performansı arasındaki ilişki konusunda yapılan araştırmaların bir sentezini oluşturmaya çalışmaktadır. Makalede yönetişim sistemlerinin çerçevesinin belirlenmesinde önemli rol oynadıkları düşünülen sahiplik yapıları, yönetim kurulları ve hukuk sistemleri incelenmekte ve bu yapılardan bazılarının...

Using data for the years 2001-2007 from the OSIRIS database on the total compensation for top executive officers of publicly listed US firms, the authors analyze the gender pay gaps across the distribution of total compensation. In the estimations, the authors control for individual and firm characteristics and find that the estimated pay gaps are...

We investigate the gender pay gap in top corporate jobs for 2001-2007 and report that female managers receive 19 percent less in total compensation than their male colleagues. Controlling for various characteristics reduces this difference to seven per-cent. While the gender pay gap is slightly below 5 percent for the fixed component, it is almost...

We investigate the gender pay gap in top corporate jobs for 2001-2007 and report that female managers receive 19 percent less in total compensation than their male colleagues. Controlling for various characteristics reduces this difference to seven percent. While the gender pay gap is slightly below 5 percent for the fixed component, it is almost 1...

This article reviews substitution patterns on the market for broadband internet services in Austria. We present survey evidence and demand estimations which suggest that DSL and cable are part of the same market at the retail and at the wholesale level. Survey and estimation results from most other countries point in the same direction. We also con...

The broadband plans deployed by governments have not benefited so far from substantive theoretical or empirical economic insights on the relative effectiveness of alternative combinations of policy interventions (on which more will be said in the next section). This paper make a first attempt at filling this gap by exploring whether some (set of) p...

"Es ist eines der auffallendsten Merkmale von Unternehmenszusammen-schlüssen, dass sie in Wellen stattfinden und dass diese Wellen mit dem Anstieg der Aktienkurse und des Preis/ Ertragsverhältnisses zusammen hängen. Wir untersuchen vier Hypothesen, die als Erklärung von Unternehmenszusammenschlüssen genannt werden: die der Industrieschocks, die q-H...

This article makes two important contributions to the literature on the incentive effects of insider ownership. First, it presents a clean method for separating the positive wealth effect of insider ownership from the negative entrenchment effect, which can be applied to samples of companies from the US and any other country. Second, it measures th...

Book Description: This book provides an insightful view of major issues in the economics of corporate governance (CG) and mergers. It presents a systematic update on the developments in the two fields during the last decade as well as highlighting the neglected topics in CG research, such as the role of boards, CG in transition countries or the rel...

We examine the effects of mergers on the returns to acquiring companies' shareholders for a large sample of companies from both Anglo-Saxon and non-Anglo-Saxon countries over the 1980s and 1990s. With the important exception of Japan, we find similar patterns of returns across both types of countries. For a sample of 9733 acquiring companies the me...

We use investment-cash flow regressions to show that both asymmetric-information and agency problems are more severe in Continental Europe than in the Anglo-Saxon countries leading to too little investment by firms with attractive investment opportunities and too much by those with poor investment opportunities. Legal systems, accounting standards,...

We compare the objectives, processes and outcomes of different approaches adopted by BOVESPA and ISE (Istanbul Stock Exchange) for differentiating better governed firms listed on their respective boards. Novo Mercado of BOVESPA, launched at the end of December 2000, was able to attract over 30 companies within 5 years, whereas ISE CG Index, announc...

Mergers that substantially lessen competition are challenged by antitrust authorities. Instead of blocking anticompetitive transitions straight away, authorities might choose to negotiate with the merging parties and allow the transactions to proceed with modifications that restore or preserve the competition in the involved markets.We study a samp...

We investigate the gender wage gap in top corporate jobs for the years 2000 till 2004. Using data from the OSIRIS database, we ¯nd that female managers receive 24.0 percent less in total compensation (salary, bonuses, other payments and exer- cised stock options) than their male colleagues. When we control for personal, ¯rm and industry characteris...

Prior to the Asian crisis of 1997, Korea's impressive growth performance was part of what has been described as the East Asian miracle. Three consecutive decades of extraordinary growth has transformed Korea from one of the poorest agrarian economies to one of the largest industrial economies in the world.1 Korea's rapid development was driven by v...

The paper presents results of an ongoing research project on corporate financing patterns in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) since 1999. It addresses three broad issues. Which are the specifics of corporate financing in CEE compared to countries in Western Europe? Which country institutional and company factors may explain the similarities and dif...

This paper applies a novel methodology to a unique dataset of large concentrations during the period 1990-2002 to assess merger control’s effectiveness. By using data gathered from several sources and employing different evaluation techniques, we analyze the economic effects of the European Commission’s (EC) merger control decisions and distinguish...

In spite of the fact that most research has concentrated on the typical agency problem between managers and dispersed shareholders, in many countries large shareholders are much more frequently observed than firms with dispersed ownership structures. While large shareholders are perceived as a potential solution to the typical agency problem betwee...

We analyze the relationship between the ownership structure and executive compensation in a sample of large listed German companies over the period from 1987 to 2003. Our findings suggest that executive compensation is a substantial fraction of corporate earnings and it reflects the existence of agency problems caused by the separation of ownership...

This paper contributes empirically to our understanding of informed traders. It analyzes traders' characteristics in a foreign exchange electronic limit order market via anonymous trader identities. We use six indicators of informed trading in a cross-sectional multivariate approach to identify traders with high price impact. More information is co...

This article makes two important contributions to the literature on the incentive effects of insider ownership. First, it presents a clean method for separating the positive wealth effect of insider ownership from the negative entrenchment effect, which can be applied to samples of companies from the US and any other country. Second, it measures th...

This paper provides a survey on studies that analyze the macroeconomic effects of intellectual property rights (IPR). The first part of this paper introduces different patent policy instruments and reviews their effects on R&D and economic growth. This part also discusses the distortionary effects and distributional consequences of IPR protection a...

This paper provides a survey on studies that analyze the macroeconomic effects of intellectual property rights (IPR). The first part of this paper introduces different patent policy instruments and reviews their effects on R&D and economic growth. This part also discusses the distortionary effects and distributional consequences of IPR protection a...

This survey gives an overview of the current state of knowledge on the question of whether corporate-governance structures worldwide are determinants of differences in economic performance. We look at the identities of owners, monitoring boards, and legal systems and find that some, though not all, corporate-governance structures give rise to diffe...

The dynamics of company profits for 172 of the largest manufacturing firms in Turkey are studied. A time-series analysis is used to estimate the long-run projected profits and firm-specific speed of adjustment parameters that measures the rate at which short-run rents are eroded. While persistent profitability differences across firms are observed,...

We analyze the impact of corporate governance institutions and ownership structures on company returns on investment by using a sample of more than 19,000 companies from 61 countries across the world. We show that the origin of a country's legal system proves to be the most important determinant of investment performance. Companies in countries wit...

We systematically analyse the effects of mergers and acquisitions on the demand for labour in the USA and Europe. We do not find adverse effects of mergers on labour demand in the USA, however we do find negative effects in Europe of the order of −10% compared to pre-merger levels. We attribute this significant difference to more rigid labour marke...