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 common ownership debate has become one of the most contentious issues in corporate law today. This debate is a by-product of major changes to capital market ownership structure, which have triggered concerns about the rise of institutional investors, the growth of index investing, and the...

A fast-growing legal literature commenting on a set of empirical papers alleging anticompetitive effects of common ownership claims that the reported effects, if true, would imply that corporate executives violate their fiduciary duty: whereas acting in the interest of common owners can help...

This paper studies the effect of common ownership on corporate social responsibility (CSR). We find that common ownership is positively associated with a firm's CSR score. The effect is stronger for firms in more competitive industries. We propose a two-stage duopoly game in which CSR serves as...

Horizontal shareholdings exist when a common set of investors own significant shares in corporations that are horizontal competitors in a product market. Economic models show that substantial horizontal shareholdings are likely to anticompetitively raise prices when the owned businesses compete...

Scholars and antitrust enforcers have raised concerns about anticompetitive effects that may arise when institutional investors hold substantial stakes in competing firms. Their concern rests on empirical evidence that such common concentrated ownership is associated with higher prices and lower...

The question of whether and how partial common-ownership links between strategically interacting firms affect firm objectives and behavior has been the subject of theoretical inquiry for decades. Since then, the growth of intermediated asset management and consolidation in the asset-management...

A phenomenon known as “Common Ownership” arises when shareholders hold substantial stakes in competing firms. Although recent empirical evidence has illustrated how common concentrated owners are associated with higher product market prices and lower output, scholars remain divided as to the...

In this letter we address the terms of reference of the Australian Parliament's Standing Committee on Economics and also make some additional comments. Our key points are as follows: The default model is not that firms will compete. Only if firms have the right incentives they will compete, and...