We explore to what extent firms deliberately manage their financial reports by exploiting the flexibility of generally accepted accounting principles. Using a sample of Oslo Stock Exchange-listed firms with 20–50% equity holdings in other firms, we find that firms with high financial leverage...

We find that shareholder turnout at the general meeting of Norwegian public firms varies between 11% and 95%, being 59% on average. This turnout behavior implies that majority control requires less than one third of the average firm's shares, and that attending shareholders vote for 1.7 times...

This chapter reports main findings from a comprehensive study of how Norwegian family firms are governed and how they behave and perform as economic entities. Analyzing all firms from 2000 to 2015, we show that the family firm represents the most widespread way of organizing economic activity,...

We find that forcing radical gender balance on corporate boards is associated with increased board independence and reduced firm value. A mandatory 40-percent gender quota shifts the average fraction of independent directors from 46 to 67 percent because female directors are much more often...

This paper explores whether ownership matters in a fundamental sense by comparing the performance of stockholder-owned firms with the much less analyzed nonprofit firms. No stakeholder has residual cash flow rights in nonprofit firms, and the control rights are held by customers, employees, and...

Corporate cross-ownership results in double counting of assets in the market's valuation of total equity. This paper is the first to use firm-specific data to measure the resulting bias in market capitalization, market portfolio return, capital structure, and the P/E ratio. Based on the...

This paper examines why firms choose to spend resources on acquiring ownership rights in other firms. Based on a unique data base of every individual intercorporate shareholding on the Oslo Stock Exchange during the period 1980-1994, we find that such investments serve at least three functions....

Norway is the first, and so far only, country to mandate a minimum fraction of female and male directors on corporate boards. We find that after a new gender balance law surprisingly stipulated that the firm must be liquidated unless at least 40% of its directors are of each gender, half the...

We analyze minority freezeout offers in a legal environment where minority stockholders can reject the offer and ask the court to value their nontendered stock. This regulatory setting allows us to observe the disciplining effect of legal enforcement on stockholder behavior. We find that...

We examine to what extent firms adhere to the stated intent of non-compulsory accounting standards when reporting for intercorporate investments. The Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) in Norway strongly recommend that a 20–50% intercorporate investment is accounted for by the...