It is the objective of this paper to determine the voting premium for French shares by comparing the values of voting and non-voting shares, and to analyze the value of the voting rights. The study uses data for 25 French companies which had both types of shares outstanding and traded on the...

The role of government shareholding in corporate performance is central to an understanding of China’s newly privatized large firms. In this paper, we analyze shareholders as agents that can both harm and benefit companies. We examine the ownership structure of 826 listed corporations and find...

We document that ownership by officers and directors of publicly-traded firms is on average higher today than earlier in the century. Managerial ownership rises from 13 percent for the universe of exchange-listed corporations in 1935, the earliest year for which such data exist, to 21 percent in...

We document that net equity issuance is considerably more sensitive to aggregate stock returns and Q's than to firm-level stock returns and Q's. Very similar patterns also emerge when we look at merger activity. In light of earlier work (Campbell 1991, Vuolteenaho 2002) which finds that...

The paper first investigates the causes of the recent financial and liquidity crisis in the US and all over the world as a preliminary phase of the imminent recession. It then questions Paulson-Bernanke’s plan as a solution to the crisis and ponders over the differences between EU plan and the...

In view of recent corporate scandals, it is argued that corporate governance can learn from public governance. Institutions devised to control and discipline the behaviour of executives in the political sphere can give new insights into how to improve the governance of firms. Some proposal such...

In a simple firm value model we consider the impact of the insolvency probability on the valuation of equity and debt, which are assumed to be not publicly traded. For the case of a distressed company, which usually has high debt and low equity, we can show that the impact becomes increasingly...

Using data for publicly traded companies from the UK and two transition countries, the Czech Republic and Poland, we analyze the relationship between ownership concentratio and performance while also accounting for the effect of hostile takeover threats on this relationship. Some argue that...

We investigate the effect of classified boards on the market reaction to seasoned equity offering (SEO) announcements and the operating performance following SEOs. We find that firms with classified boards on average earn lower SEO announcement returns and have worse abnormal operating...

Shareholder agreements are contracts that govern the relationship among different shareholders in a firm. This article uses a unique dataset to analyze shareholder agreements in listed companies and shows how they affect firm valuation. While shareholder agreements may be used to expropriate...