This study examines the determinants of worker's remittances. Variance decompositions, impulse response functions and Granger causality tests derived from a vector error correction model are used to test if remittances are affected by the macroeconomic conditions of the host (remittance sending) or home (remittance receiving) country. Data from Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Mexico and the US are used. The results indicate that remittances respond more to changes in the macroeconomic conditions of the host country, than to changes in the macroeconomic conditions of the home country.Remittances, migration, international flows, error correction models,

We argue that the method of payment in cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) can mitigate country-level governance risk for the acquirer. We find a greater use of stock as the method of payment in cross-border deals involving targets from countries with high governance risk relative to that in the acquirer's country. This increased use of stock in riskier cross-border deals is consistent with the optimal reaction of the acquirer to avoid overpayment, even though we also show that the use of stock (instead of cash) as the method of payment in cross-border deals is associated with a lower likelihood of deal completion. Furthermore, for more recent periods (i.e., after 2000) we show that the use of stock (cash) has increased (decreased) significantly in cross-border deals, resulting in convergence with the method of payment used in domestic deals.

We use the 2003 NYSE and NASDAQ listing rules for board independence as an exogenous shock to estimate the causal relation between board independence and the variability of firm performance. Using a difference-in-difference approach, we find that non-compliant firms without a majority of independent directors observe a larger decrease in the variability of firm performance than compliant firms. In particular, board independence is negatively associated with the variability of (1) monthly stock returns, (2) ROA, (3) Tobin’s Q, (4) analyst forecast inaccuracy, (5) accounting accruals, (6) extraordinary items, (7) capital expenditures, (8) cash holdings and (9) the frequency of acquisition activities. We conclude that increased board independence weakens the CEO’s power over the board and restrains corporate risk-taking; thus, decisions made by firms with more independent boards are less extreme, resulting in less variability of firm performance.

We investigate the asymmetric risk-return relationship in a time-varying beta CAPM. A state space model is established and estimated by the Adaptive Least Squares with Kalman foundations proposed by McCulloch (2006). Using S&P 500 daily data from 1987:11-2003:12, we find a positive risk-return relationship in the up market (positive market excess returns) and a negative relationship in the down market (negative market excess returns). This supports the argument by Pettengill, Sundaram and Mathur (1995), who use a constant beta model. However, our model outperforms theirs by eliminating the unexplained returns and improving the accuracy of the estimated risk price.