Minority shareholdings have been on the regulatory agenda of competition authorities for some time. Recent empirical studies, however, draw attention to a new, thought provoking theory of harm: common ownership by institutional investors holding small, parallel equity positions in several...

The spread of minority equity interest by large investors within productive sectors has garnered theattention of major institutions worldwide. This work draws a picture of such “common ownership”in the European energy industry in 2007-2018, by means of novel indicators covering both the...

The literature shows that horizontal shareholding engenders significant anticompetitive effects and that no suitable instrument exists within European competition law which reliably and effectively can be applied to curtail such intrinsic effects. This Article analyses several proposals which...

This paper complements the existing scarce literature on financial cooperatives in various ways. First, we describe the background and evolution of European Cooperative Banking Groups (ECBGs). Second, we summarize the main reasons for the past disregard and recent revaluation of the cooperative...

The increase in institutional ownership of recent decades has been accompanied by an enhanced role played by institutions in monitoring companies' corporate governance behaviour. Activist hedge funds and private equity firms have achieved a degree of success in actively shaping the business...

The purpose of this study is to identify whether an innovative company’s likelihood of facing financial constraints is different when the company possesses a public procurement contract (PP). Theory suggests that the treatment effects of public procurement, particularly when mediated by the...

During the recent financial crisis, euro area firms, and especially Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, have been reporting acute problems of access to external finance. Using firm-level replies to the SME survey on access to finance, we use two indicators of financing constraints based on...

During the recent financial crisis, euro area firms, and especially Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, have been reporting acute problems of access to external finance. Using firm-level replies to the SME survey on access to finance, we use two indicators of financing constraints based on...

In this study we investigate the determinants of financing obstacles using survey data on a sample of around 5000 firms from the euro area countries. This completely new survey - started at the end of 2009 - gives us the opportunity to test whether firm characteristics such as size, age,...

In this article, in addition to understanding what are the elements and stages that have guided the formation of a corporate culture in the ESG area, we focus on two specificities: the distinctive traits of the board of directors, on the one hand, and the relationship between ESG performance and...