The first striking feature is that ownership of the average UK company is diffuse: a coalition of at least eight shareholders is required to reach an absolute majority of voting rights. Even though the average firm has a dispersed ownership, the reader should bear in mind that there are about...

We show that in countries with more societal trust shareholders cast fewer votes at shareholder meetings and are more supportive of management proposals. This result is confirmed by instrumental variable regressions. It also holds at the U.S.-county level and for voting by U.S. institutional...

A change in the index selection rules of Deutsche Börse provides a unique opportunity to investigate the drivers behind the decision to a bolish dual-class shares. As of June 2002, selection is based on the market capitalization of the free-float of the more liquid share class rather than the...

This paper studies the impact of the concentration of control, the type of controlling shareholder and the dividend tax preference of the controlling shareholder on dividend policy for a panel of 220 German firms over 1984-2005. While the concentration of control does not have an effect on the...

This paper studies the impact of the concentration of control, the type of controlling shareholder and the dividend tax preference of the controlling shareholder on dividend policy for a panel of 220 German firms over 1984-2005. While the concentration of control does not have an effect on the...

This paper studies the impact of the concentration of control, the type of controlling shareholder and the dividend tax preference of the controlling shareholder on dividend policy for a panel of 220 German firms over 1984-2005. While the concentration of control does not have an effect on the...

This paper studies the impact of the concentration of control, the type of controlling shareholder and the dividend tax preference of the controlling shareholder on dividend policy for a panel of 220 German firms over 1984-2005. While the concentration of control does not have an effect on the...

This paper investigates whether investment spending of firms is sensitive to the availability of internal funds. Imperfect capital markets create a hierarchy for the different sources of funds such that investment and financial decisions are not independent. The relation between corporate...

This paper studies the two potentially contrasting effects on IPO pricing and post-IPO operating performance of family ties as well as social ties the top management has with board members. While family ties may solve manager-owner conflicts of interests, they may also give rise to...

We examine the link between CEO overconfidence and speed of adjustment (SOA) of cash holdings for listed US firms. We find a negative effect of overconfident CEOs on the SOA. Further, CEO overconfidence increases the asymmetry in the SOA between firms with excess cash and those with a cash...