Belén Villalonga
There are 4 articles for this faculty member.
About Faculty in this Article:
Belén Villalonga is an associate professor in the Finance unit at Harvard Business School.
The Role of Institutional Development in the Prevalence and Value of Family Firms
| Authors: | Raphael Amit, Yuan Ding, Belén Villalonga, and Hua Zhang |
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| Published: | June 23, 2010 |
| Paper Release Date: | May 2010 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
Family firms dominate economic activity in most countries, and are significantly different from other companies in their behavior, structural characteristics, and performance. But what explains the significant variation in the prevalence and value of family firms around the world? The two leading explanations are legal investor protection and institutional development, but cross-country studies are unable to rule out the alternative explanation that cultural norms are what account for these differences. In contrast, China provides an excellent laboratory for addressing this question because it offers great variation in institutional efficiency across regions, yet the country as a whole shares cultural and social norms together with a common legal and regulatory framework. In this paper, HBS professor Belén Villalonga and coauthors study ownership data from a sample of nearly 1,500 publicly listed firms on the Chinese stock market. They conclude that institutional development plays a critical role in the prevalence and value of family firms, and that the differences observed across regions are not attributable to cultural factors.
When Do Analysts Add Value? Evidence from Corporate Spinoffs
| Authors: | Emilie Rose Feldman, Stuart C. Gilson, and Belén Villalonga |
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| Published: | June 17, 2010 |
| Paper Release Date: | May 2010 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
The impact of financial analysts on capital market efficiency has been much debated in academia and in practice. A large body of academic research finds that analysts act as important information intermediaries who contribute to the overall efficiency of capital markets. Other research, however, has identified contexts in which the value of analyst coverage may be relatively more limited, such as when analysts face possible conflicts of interest, or when the company or situation they are presented with is especially complex. Still other research questions the informativeness of analyst recommendations in light of regulatory changes. In this paper, HBS doctoral graduate Emilie Rose Feldman and professors Stuart C. Gilson and Belén Villalonga examine 1,793 analyst reports written at the time of corporate spinoffs to determine how much value analysts create as information intermediaries in this setting. Spinoffs provide an interesting context for this purpose because the degree of information asymmetry between corporate insiders and investors is especially high. The paper is one of the first to provide very fine-grained detail on the quantity and types of analyses included in analyst reports.
Does Diversification Create Value in the Presence of External Financing Constraints? Evidence from the 2008-2009 Financial Crisis
| Authors: | Venkat Kuppuswamy and Belén Villalonga |
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| Published: | June 16, 2010 |
| Paper Release Date: | May 2010 (Revised November 2010) |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
The global financial crisis of 2008-2009 has led academics and practitioners to question many widely held beliefs about business and economics. One such belief relates to the value of corporate diversification. Popular views about diversification have swung like a pendulum over the past half-century, from a generally positive view in the 1960s and 1970s, when many large conglomerates were formed, to a generally negative view in the 1980s and early 1990s, when many such conglomerates were dismantled or at least fell out of the stock market's favor. In 2009, in the wake of the global financial crisis, a new view seems to be emerging that conglomerates are ready for a comeback. In this paper, HBS doctoral candidate Venkat Kuppuswamy and professor Belén Villalonga examine whether and why conglomerates have become more valuable during the 2008-2009 financial crisis. They find that they have, and that the increase does not simply reflect changes in investor perceptions but real differences in corporate finance and investment.
Corporate Governance and Internal Capital Markets
| Authors: | Zacharias Sautner and Belén Villalonga |
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| Published: | June 10, 2010 |
| Paper Release Date: | May 2010 |
| Feature: | Working Papers |
What is the impact of corporate ownership on corporate diversification and on the efficiency of firms' internal capital markets? Corporate governance and internal capital markets are two topics closely intertwined in theoretical research; for example, agency problems—which corporate governance mechanisms seek to mitigate in a variety of ways—are at the heart of every theory of inefficient internal capital markets. Yet surprisingly few empirical studies have looked into the actual link between corporate governance and internal capital markets. This paper by University of Amsterdam professor Zacharias Sautner and HBS professor Belén Villalonga seeks to fill the gap by taking advantage of a natural experiment provided by a tax change in Germany in 2002. The researchers provide direct evidence of the effect of governance structures on how markets work, as well as new evidence about the benefits and costs of ownership concentration.
