We investigate the impact of founding family ownership on accounting conservatism. Family ownership is characterized by large, under-diversified equity stake and long investment horizon. These features give family owners both the incentives and the ability to implement conservative financial...

Using a data set for 162 largest Hungarian firms during the period of 1994-1999 this paper explores the determinants of equity shares held by both foreign investors and by Hungarian corporations. We find evidence of a post-privatisation evolution towards more homogeneous equity structures, where...

The legal environment is one important determinant of corporate governance. However, within legal families, also cultural differences can explain the level of corporate governance to some extent. We analyze this relationship for the case of Switzerland. Swiss firms are mainly located in two...

During 2005-2006, the Chinese government implemented a reform aimed at eliminating the so-called non-tradable shares (NTS), shares typically held by the State or by politically connected institutional investors that were issued at the early stage of financial market development. Our analysis,...

Following Zwiebel (1995) and Zingales (1995) the block premium is related to the share of total control rents which is being transferred through a block transaction relative to the share of control rents enjoyed by the market. The former share is measured by the difference in the seller's (the...

This study surveys the academic and professional literature examining the privatisation of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), with a focus on empirical studies. Privatisation has been instrumental in reducing state ownership in many countries and had a transforming effect on global stock markets,...

Motivated by the agency theory and the need to examine the effect of separation of ownership and management, this study examines the determinants of profitability in different firm ownership structures and how different ownership structures impact the profitability of listed firms between 2003...

Previous studies have shown that product market competition has an important effect on corporate strategies and internal governance mechanisms. Using a sample of China's listed firms from 2004 to 2009, we explore the relationship between product market competition and normal related party...