Is it really a bonding, an avoidance, or a characteristics choice? An analysis of foreign listing on low versus high investor protection markets

Abstract

We investigate the difference in the characteristics of firms that cross-list on high versus low investor protection markets. We find that civil law firms that cross-list on common law markets have higher growth rate, larger size and lower turnover pre cross-listing than their counterparts that cross-list on civil law markets. Also, we find that common law firms that cross-list on common law markets are larger and have a lower volume turnover than those that cross-list on civil law markets. Both groups experience a significant increase in their growth after cross-listing on common law markets. We also report that firms which have poor accounting standards, poor performance, are small in size, and from civil law countries are likely to cross-list on the US unregulated exchanges