Consistent with a bank-centered governance system, Japanese firms exhibit an exceptionally low level of performance variability. The increased involvement of foreign investors motivated by shareholder value is thus likely to have triggered a major shift in their risk-taking behavior. My results...

Evidence based on US firms suggests that large boards restrain risk taking. We investigate whether a similar effect exists in Japan. Our results confirm that firms with larger boards exhibit lower performance variability relative to firms with smaller boards. However, this effect is less...

We investigate whether multiple large shareholders (MLS) affect corporate risk-taking. Using hand-collected data on French publicly-listed companies over the period 2003-2007, we show that the presence, number and voting power of MLS, other than the largest controlling shareholder (LCS), are...