Traditionally share price returns and their variance have been explained by factors linked to the operations of the company such as systematic risk, corporate size and P/E ratios or by factors related to the influence of the macro-economic environment. In these models, the institutional...

This paper has described two broad systems of corporate governance existing in Continental Europe and in the UK.

This paper analyses the control of Belgian listed companies.The analysis reveals that control of listed companies in Belgium is highly concentrated . Business groups, holding companies, and voting pacts, play an important role in bringing about this concentration.The main characteristics of the...

The paper investigates why the corporate landscapes of Germany and UK are so different in terms of control by analyzing ownership evolution in recent IPOs. We report the control evolution of a sample of size- and industry-matched German and UK companies six years subsequent to the flotation. The...

We investigate the impact of corporate governance and product market competition on productivity of German and U.K. firms. We find a strong positive relation between productivity and product market competition and various governance mechanisms. In poorly performing U.K. firms, the presence of...

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...