We investigate how the contractibility of actions affecting the value of an asset affects asset ownership. We examine this by testing how on-board computer (OBC) adoption affects truck ownership. We develop and test the proposition that adoption should lead to less ownership by drivers,...

Both managerial ownership and performance are endogenously determined by exogenous (and only partly observed) changes in the firm's contracting environment. We extend the cross-sectional results of Demsetz and Lehn (1985) and use panel data to show that managerial ownership is explained by key...

This paper develops a rent-protection theory of corporate ownership structure - and in particular, of the choice between concentrated and dispersed ownership of corporate shares and votes. The paper analyzes the decision of a company's initial owner whether to maintain a lock on control when the...

We examine the interaction between three kinds of concentrated owners commonly found in an emerging market: family-run business groups, domestic financial institutions, and foreign financial institutions. Using data from India in the early 1990s, we find evidence that domestic international...

How persistent are the effects of legal institutions adopted or inherited in the distant past? A substantial literature argues that legal origins have persistent effects that explain clear differences in investor protections and financial development around the world today (La Porta et al, 1998,...

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...

This paper analyzes the ownership and governance of the business corporations of New York State in the 1820s. Using a new dataset collected from the manuscript records of New York's 1823 capital tax, and from the charters of the corporations, I analyze the ownership structures of the firms, and...

The bulk of corporate governance theory examines the agency problems that arise from two extreme ownership structures: 100 percent small shareholders or one large, controlling owner combined with small shareholders. In this paper, we question the empirical validity of this dichotomy. In fact,...

Legal rules, politics and behavioral factors have all been emphasized as explanatory factors in analyses of the determinants of the concentration of corporate ownership and stock market participation. An extension of standard tax clientele arguments demonstrates that changes in the progressivity...

Around the world, large corporations usually have controlling owners, who are usually very wealthy families. Outside the U.S. and the U.K., pyramidal control structures, cross shareholding and super voting rights are common. Using these devices, a family can control corporations without making a...