While financial institutions' aggregate investments have grown substantially worldwide, the size of their individual shareholdings, and ultimately their incentive to monitor, may be limited by the free-rider problem, regulations, and a preference for diversification and liquidity. We compare...

Using a dataset of 28,635 firms in 45 countries, this study investigates the motivations for family-controlled business groups. We provide new evidence consistent with the argument that particular group structures emerge not only to perpetuate control, but also to alleviate financing constraints...

We examine the extent to which individual monitoring mechanisms enhance firm performance and shareholder value. We use a sample of Australian firms, from 1994 to 2003, to analyze the relationship between firm performance and corporate governance. This provides a long time series of governance...

Despite the general acceptance of the role of corporate governance, empirical research has remained inconclusive regarding the extent to which individual monitoring mechanisms enhance firm performance and shareholder value. In particular, most previous studies have not convincingly overcome two...

Using a sample of large Australian firms from 1994 to 2003, we show that variation in firm-level corporate governance mechanisms plays an important role in explaining a firm's cost of capital. Our empirical results show that greater insider ownership, the presence of institutional blockholders...