I quantify private benefits of control, and their impact on stock prices, by estimating a structural model of optimal shareholding using data on the ownership dynamics of Italian public companies. The results show that controlling shareholders generally have positive and persistent impact on...

Using the high-power setting of newly privatized firms from 64 countries, we examine the relationship between ownership type and firm-level capital allocations as captured by the sensitivity of investment expenditure to investment opportunities. Consistent with our predictions that government...

The aim of this paper is to analyze the factors that motivate private firms to follow a conservative financial policy. Using a new definition of financial conservatism, we investigate a sample of 21,959 Italian private firms for the 1998-2006 period and look for the determinants of financial...

In this paper, we examine the relation between government ownership and stock price informativeness around the world. Using a sample of privatized firms from 41 countries between 1983 and 2007, we find strong and robust evidence that state ownership is associated with lower firm-level stock...

We examine how the size of the corporate directors' labor market affects the quality of board appointments in Italian private firms. To establish the causality of the relationship, we exploit exogenous variations in firms' access to non-local potential directors following the gradual...

A review of the academic research and practitioner best practices literature highlights how little we still know about the role that ownership control plays in the continuity of founder-controlled and family-controlled firms. Founder-controlled firms have been shown to financially outperform...

Exit theory predicts a governance role of outside blockholders' exit threats; but this role could be ineffective if managers' potential private benefits exceed their loss in stock-price declines caused by outside blockholders' exit. We test this prediction using the Split-Share Structure Reform...

A number of studies have examined the effect of public and private ownership on the cost of debt and conclude that the cost of debt of privately owned firms is higher, driven mainly by the poorer information environment in which these firms operate. We extend this strand of research in two ways....