Equity ties between businesses change the division of the firms joint profits, thereby affecting incentives for relation-specific investments and other strategic actions. Depending on which side owns the equity and how readily the equity can be resold, we find that the changed incentives can...

Exit theory predicts a governance role of outside blockholders' exit threats; but this role could be ineffective if managers' potential private benefits exceed their loss in stock-price declines caused by outside blockholders' exit. We test this prediction using the Split-Share Structure Reform...

We allow the preference of a political majority to determine boththe corporate governance structure and the division of profits betweenhuman and financial capital. In a democratic society where financialwealth is concentrated, a political majority may prefer to restraingovernance by dispersed...

We investigate how transient institutional ownership influences the level and value of cash holdings. We show that transient institutional ownership has a positive effect on cash holdings, and this linkage is more pronounced when stock and credit market conditions are less favorable. Using a...

This paper studies the capital allocation decisions of firms that are comparable except for ownership under a unique setting using investment level data. We find allocative inefficiency across ownership to be exacerbated under policy distortions through subsidized credits targeted at state-owned...

We derive and develop a simple and intuitive model that shines fresh light on the relentless debate over whether corporate ownership converges to the Berle-Means modern corporation with high stock ownership dispersion. Our model takes into account the importance of both protective legal...

This paper investigates how corporate governance of unlisted firms in an emerging market economy affects financing constraints, measured by the sensitivity of investment to cash flow. We develop two original corporate governance indices based on a large-scale survey of Russian enterprises –...

We examine the effect of corporate ownership structure on the market value of excess cash in Chinese listed firms. We find that state ownership has a positive effect, as the market value of excess cash is greater in state-owned firms than in privately controlled firms. Furthermore, we show that...

This paper analyzes how ownership concentration and managerial incentives influences bank risk for a large sample of US banks over the period 1997-2007. Using 2SLS simultaneous equations models, we show that ownership concentration has a positive total effect on bank risk. This is the result of...

We examine the incentive effects of private equity (PE) professionals' ownership in the funds they manage. In a simple model, we show that managers select less risky firms and use more debt financing the higher their ownership. We test these predictions for a sample of PE funds in Norway, where...