Abstract In 2009 there were over 49,330 credit unions across 98 countries with more than
184 million members and approximately $1,354 billion in assets. There is a great diversity …

Frank Easterbrook and Daniel Fischel argue that the rules and practices of corporate law
mimic the contractual provisions that investors, managers, and others involved in a …

The investor-owned corporation is the conventional form for structuring large-scale
enterprise in market economies. But it is not the only one. Even in the United States …

This book provides an overview of the practice of Islamic finance and the historical roots that
define its modes of operation. The focus of the book is analytical and forward-looking. It …

We compare the performance and risk of a sample of 181 large banks from 15 European
countries over the 1999–2004 period and evaluate the impact of alternative ownership …

We examine the relationship between firm performance and corporate governance in
microfinance institutions (MFI) using a self-constructed global dataset on MFIs collected from …

The authors investigate the coevolution of organizations and institu-tions—they study how
institutional definitions, rules, and expectations unfold in tandem with the organizational …

This paper analyses the determinants of risk-taking in Spanish financial intermediaries, with
special emphasis on the ownership structure and size of the different entities. On the one …

We provide an explanation for hedging as a means of allocating rather than reducing risk.
We argue that when increases in total risk are costly, firms optimally allocate risk by reducing …

This review puts a corporate finance lens on microfinance. Microfinance aims to democratize
global financial markets through new contracts, organizations, and technology. We explain …