Volkova, Ekaterina2017-07-072019-06-082017-05-30Volkova_cornellgrad_0058F_10261http://dissertations.umi.com/cornellgrad:10261bibid: 9948826https://hdl.handle.net/1813/51603This dissertation explores three different aspects in corporate finance. My first essay explores governance from the side of blockholders. My second essay explores governance from the side of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). And my third essay overview and summarizes recent literature in the IPO field. In Chapter 1, “Blockholder Diversity: Effect of Polyphony on the Power of Monitoring”, I investigate how the differences in skill, incentives and preferences between large shareholders in the company affect the power of their monitoring. My findings suggest that diversity between blockholder creates disagreement that have strong negative influence of the power of their governance. Such adverse influence is also reflected in the future dynamics of company value and performance. In Chapter 2 (joint with Michelle Lowry and Roni Michaely) “Information Revelation Through Regulatory Process: Interactions Between the SEC and Companies Ahead of the IPO”, we explore the main determinants of extensiveness and focus of SEC review of companies before they go public. In the second part of this chapter we explore what investors could learn from the information disclosed during this review process. In Chapter 3 (joint with Michelle Lowry and Roni Michaely) “Initial Public Offerings: a Synthesis of the Literature and Direction for Future Research” we provide a literature review of recent papers in the IPO field. In addition, we also explore how the main stylized facts behave of the large sample of IPOs between 1972 and 2015.en-USBlockholderCorporate GovernanceIPOFinancedissertation or thesishttps://doi.org/10.7298/X4N29V2H