In this paper we disentangle the sources of public sector inefficiency using 1982-1995 panel data on manufacturing firms in Indonesia. We consider two leading hypotheses: (1) public sector enterprises are inefficient due to monitoring problems and (2) public sector enterprises are inefficient...

In a corporate freeze-out, the controller is required to compensate minority shareholders for the no-freezeout value of their shares that are taken from them. This paper seeks to highlight the difficulties involved in determining this no-freezeout value when private information. In particular,...

We are concerned with the design of a constitution for a firm -- an ex ante contract which assigns residual rights of control (and possibly residual income rights) without reference to the issue to be decided. We focus attention on two polar constitutions: nonprofit cooperatives and outside...

This paper analyzes the inefficiencies that might arise in the ownership structure chosen at the initial public offering stage. We show that, contrary to what is commonly believed, the desire of initial owners to maximize their proceeds leads them to choices that, although privately optimal, may...

This paper empirically analyzes the determinants of an initial public offering (IPO) and the consequences of this decision on a company's investment and financial policy. We compare both the ex ante and the ex post characteristics of IPOs with those of a large sample of privately held companies...

This paper develops a framework for analyzing transactions that transfer a company's controlling block from an existing controller to a new controller. This framework is used to compare the market rule, which is followed in the United States, with the equal opportunity rule, which prevails in...

In the last two decades U.S. banks have become systematically less profitable and riskier as nonbank competition has eroded the profitability of banks' traditional activities. Bank failures, insignificant from 1934, the date the Glass-Steagall Act was passed, until 1980, rose exponentially in...

The separation of ownership and control allows controlling shareholders to pursue private benefits. We develop an analytically tractable dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model to study asset pricing and welfare implications of imperfect investor protection. Consistent with empirical...

We provide a rationale for pyramidal ownership (the control of a firm through a chain of ownership relations) that departs from the traditional argument that pyramids arise to separate cash flow from voting rights. With a pyramidal structure, a family uses a firm it already controls to set up a...