The initial sample consists of all firm-year observations from private and public
companies that have their domicile in one of the 15 member states of the European Union
(EU), where current year’s net income and previous year’s total assets are available on
Amadeus. By adopting size restrictions similar to those laid out in the Fourth EU
Directive, we explicitly exclude small privately held firms to which the EU directives may
not fully apply.12 Specifically, we require privately held firms to meet at least two of the
following three criteria in every year: (1) total assets greater than EUR 2.5 millions, (2)
sales greater than EUR 5 millions, and (3) number of employees greater than 50. We also
exclude banks, insurance companies and other financial holdings (SIC codes between 6000
and 6799), public administrative institutions (SIC codes above 9000), as well as privately
held subsidiaries of quoted companies as indicated in Amadeus. Investment, financing and
operating decisions in the latter firm category are likely to be influenced by parent
companies, which may bias our analyses.