Modern perceptions of good corporate governance assume that the general meeting has a meaningful role in the governance of listed companies and that shareholders make responsible use of their voting rights. Assessments after the financial crisis, however, indicate that institutional investors by...

This note presents my position regarding the hidden ownership schemes currently employed by the Schaeffler group to build up stakes in Continental AG in preparation for an unsolicited surprise cash-bid for Continental's shares. It summarizes the information publicly available on the Schaeffler /...

Vital in preserving managerial accountability, the firmly established one share, one vote rule provides shareholders with limited rights to elect directors who appoint managers and to approve certain extraordinary transactions. Without the deterrents of risk of capital loss and fear of removal,...

Competitive advantage is typically based on a unique nexus of firm-specific investments that creates inimitable quasi-rents. As writing complete contracts on how to distribute the quasi-rents is impossible, stakeholders may underinvest in firm-specific assets to avoid the hold-up risk. This...

Whereas the agency theory predicts that dual-class shares decrease firm performance, the stewardship theory predicts that dual-class shares increase firm performance. The cumulative findings on the performance consequences of dual-class shares have been weak and/or inconclusive. Because...

Spending by private health insurers exceeds $800 billion and is expected to rise. The Affordable Care Act provides $2 billion in subsidies to jump-start health insurers owned by their policyholders in an attempt to bring these costs under control. Firms with this corporate ownership structure...

This paper examines whether and how inside ownership mediates the relation between disclosure quality and the cost of capital. Both ownership and more transparent reporting have the potential to align incentives between managers and investors thereby reducing systematic risk. Employing a large...

This paper examines whether and how inside ownership mediates the relation between disclosure quality and the cost of capital. Both ownership and more transparent reporting have the potential to align incentives between managers and investors thereby reducing systematic risk. Employing a large...

This study investigates how controlling shareholders fraudulently extracted firm value via cash tunnelling from Chinese companies from 1998 to 2011. The evidence suggests that expropriating owners choose a balance sheet account that is not directly related to the firm's operating business in...

Using hand-collected data of bank loans and CEO turnovers in China, we investigate whether common ownership compromises creditors’ governance role when borrowers underperform. Unlike prior literature on the overall lack of bank monitoring on state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in China, we argue...