Using ownership and control data for 890 firm-years, this paper examines the concentration of capital and voting rights in British companies in the second half of the nineteenth century. We find that both capital and voting rights were diffuse by modern-day standards. This implies that ownership...

Using ownership and control data for 890 firm-years, this paper examines the concentration of capital and voting rights in British companies in the second half of the nineteenth century. We find that both capital and voting rights were diffuse by modern-day standards. This implies that ownership...

This paper examines the origins of investor protection under the common law by analysing the development of shareholder protection in Victorian Britain, the home of the common law. In this era, very little was codified, with corporate law simply suggesting a default template of rules....

This paper examines the origins of investor protection under the common law by analysing the development of shareholder protection in Victorian Britain, the home of the common law. In this era, very little was codified, with corporate law simply suggesting a default template of rules....

Should outside blockholders be more common in countries with weaker shareholder protection? I show that there can be a U-shape dependence of the outside ownership concentration on the quality of shareholder protection. This result is in line with the recent empirical evidence questioning the...

In the late nineteenth century Britain had almost no mandatory shareholder protections, but had very developed financial markets. We argue that private contracting between shareholders and corporations meant that the absence of statutory protections was immaterial. Using circa 500 articles of...

Das Wertpapiererwerbs- und Übernahmegesetz (WpÜG) schafft für deutsche Zielgesellschaften einen neuen organisierten Markt für die Konzentration von Streubesitz. Der Beitrag analysiert den Regulierungsbedarf aus ökonomischer Sicht, er präsentiert und erläutert die ausgeklügelten...

Das Wertpapiererwerbs- und Übernahmegesetz (WpÜG) schafft für deutsche Zielgesellschaften einen neuen organisierten Markt für die Konzentration von Streubesitz. Der Beitrag analysiert den Regulierungsbedarf aus ökonomischer Sicht, er präsentiert und erläutert die ausgeklügelten...

In this article, I develop the concept of "ownership piercing." I use the expression to suggest that courts engage in a process of evaluative reasoning to clarify who owns property rights and controls the limited liability company. I show under what circumstances courts should pierce ownership....