While generally the impact tax has on patterns of corporate ownership and control has received little attention, this paper argues that tax is potentially an important determinant of ownership patterns in large companies. The paper focuses mainly on historical developments in Britain, where an...

While generally the impact tax has on patterns of corporate ownership and control has received little attention in the relevant academic literature, this paper argues that tax is potentially an important determinant of ownership patterns in large companies. The paper focuses on historical...

In the field of comparative corporate governance, a thesis that is currently influential is that the 'law matters' The thinking is that laws which allow investors to feel confident about owning a tiny percentage of shares in a firm constitute the crucial 'bedrock' that underpins a US-style...

Much has been said recently about the risky legal environment in which outside directors of public companies operate, especially in theUSA, but increasingly elsewhere as well. Our research on outside director liability suggests, however, that directors' fears are largely unjustified. We examine...

For diffuse ownership to become the norm in large business enterprises investors need to be sufficiently confident to buy shares. Will investors follow through if serious doubts exist concerning the competence of those managing companies? This paper addresses this question, primarily by...

We often hear that hardly anyone wants to sit on corporate boards these days, largely because they fear personal liability. Our investigation of seven representative countries (Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the United States) suggests that the liability concern is...

Market forces allegedly are serving to destabilise traditional business structures and cause some form of convergence along quot;Anglo-Americanquot; lines. While this trend has been the subject of much debate, it has not been widely commented on in Australia. Moreover, those analysing corporate...

The German system of corporate governance differs considerably from its counterparts in the United States and the United Kingdom. There is anecdotal evidence, however, that suggests market forces are serving to destabilize traditional structures in Germany and are causing some form of...

Share ownership in the United States is widely dispersed instead of being concentrated in the hands of families, banks or other firms. Most of the country's major companies have publicly traded shares and a minority of these have a shareholder that owns enough equity to have any sort of...