Using rich and accurate data from Oslo Stock Exchange firms, we find that corporate governance matters for economic performance, insider ownership matters the most, outside ownership concentration destroys market value, direct ownership seems superior to indirect, and that performance decreases...

Using a data base which is exceptionally rich and accurate by international standards, this paper quantifies a wide range of ownership structure characteristics for all Oslo Stock Exchange firms in the period 1989-1997. Overall, we find that their ownership structures differ remarkably from...

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...

Within a broad sample of US manufacturing firms, we find that, controlling for investment opportunities and financial constraints, increased governance quality is associated with higher levels of investment. Increased governance quality is also associated with greater responsiveness of...

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....