Most listed firms are freestanding in the U.S, while listed firms in other countries often belong to business groups: lasting structures in which listed firms control other listed firms. Hand-collected historical data illuminate how the present ownership structure of the United States arose: (1)...

Studies of corporate governance are concerned with two features of modern shareholding: diffuse ownership and the resulting separation of ownership and control, which potentially leads to managerial self-dealing; and, majority shareholding, which potentially mitigates some managerial...

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,...

Shareholder power in the US grew over recent decades due to a steep rise in concentrated institutional ownership. Using establishment-level data from the US Census Bureau's Longitudinal Business Database for 1982-2015, this paper examines the impact of increases in concentrated institutional...

This paper develops a simple theoretical framework to study a set of regions, each with its own regional government, who share a union or central government. These governments must decide whether to implement or discard a large number of projects that produce local benefits for the region that...

The US Civil War ended in 1865 without the distribution of land or compensation to those formerly enslaved--a decision often seen as a cornerstone of racial inequality. We build a dataset to observe Black households' landholdings in 1880, a key component of their wealth, alongside a sample of...

Three types of firms -- nonprofit, for-profit, and government -- own U.S. hospitals, yet we do not know whether ownership results in the specialization of medical service provision. This study of over 30 medical services in urban, general hospitals (1988-2000) shows that ownership types...

In the absence of owners, how effective are the constraints imposed by the state in promoting effective firm governance? This paper develops state-level indices of the legal and reporting rules facing not-for-profits and examines the effects of these rules on not-for-profit behavior. Stronger...

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...

Which public policies and ownership structures enhance the governance of banks? This paper constructs a new database on the ownership of banks internationally and then assesses the ramifications of ownership, shareholder protection laws, and supervisory/regulatory policies on bank valuations....