This paper is the third chapter of the third edition of The Anatomy of Corporate Law: A Comparative and Functional Approach, by Reinier Kraakman, John Armour, Paul Davies, Luca Enriques, Henry Hansmann, Gerard Hertig, Klaus Hopt, Hideki Kanda Mariana Pargendler, Georg Ringe, and Edward Rock...

This paper reports on an empirical analysis of 42,094 public/private companies in China and 21 Eastern European countries to grasp the actual state and determinants of board gender diversity in emerging market firms. We confirmed that firms in these countries are comparable to those in advanced...

We provide the first comprehensive and robust evidence on the relationship between board independence and firm performance in China. We find that independent directors have an overall positive effect on firm operating performance in China. Our findings are robust to a battery of tests, including...

This paper investigates how institutional environment like property rights protection influences the size and composition of corporate boards, and further, how board structure impacts firm performance in China. Using a World Bank survey of 2,400 public and private firms across 18 Chinese cities,...

In this paper, we examine the effects of ownership concentration and board characteristics on the performance of listed firms domiciled in Jordan, one of the main emerging markets in the Middle East. Employing 2SLS regressions on a sample of 103 firms listed on the Amman Stock Exchange for...

Dozens of judicial opinions have held that shareholders own corporations, that directors are agents of shareholders, and even that directors are trustees of shareholders' property. Yet, until now, it has never been proven. These doctrines rest on unsubstantiated assumptions. In this book the...

The "law matters" thesis implies countries will not develop a robust stock market or diffuse corporate ownership structures unless laws are in place that curtail the extraction of private benefits of control by large shareholders and address information asymmetries from which outside investors...