We study the benefits of opening up local equity markets to foreign institutional investors using data on Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors (QFIIs) in China around the reform floating non-tradable shares. We find evidence supporting the view (Stulz (1999)) that as “outsiders,”...

Studies of the incentives behind the expropriation of minority shareholders of publicly listed firms by their controlling shareholders focus on the publicly listed firm's performance or characteristics and treat the controlling shareholder as a black box. In this paper, we examine when and why...

Western economists have argued that the legal environment for the protection of minority shareholders and mechanisms for restricting the expropriation of minority shareholders will be important in determining the size and extent of a country's capital markets. In China, the protection of...

In his article, Controlling Family Shareholders in Developing Countries: Anchoring Relational Exchange, Professor Ronald Gilson raises critical points against the conventional view of corporate governance in a controlling shareholder regime with poor investor protection: (1) given that equity...

This paper explores how shareholder engagement on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues is informally exercised by a large global institutional investor with locally embedded, geographically remote firms. By studying a UK asset manager's shareholder engagement strategies on ESG...

On 24 January 2019, a revised Singapore Code on Take-overs and Mergers (the Take-overs Code) was promulgated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) on the advice of the Securities Industry Council (the SIC).The revisions are to ensure that takeover practices targeting at companies with the...

We examine how the market values operating assets in the presence of time-varying ex ante risk that these assets may be tunneled away. We analyze pairs of Chinese publicly listed firms and their non-listed parents and examine the market valuation of current assets (cash balances, trade...

The paper describes the system and current developments of corporate governance in Germany. The two-tier-system, the co-determination regime and other control devices are explained shortly. The paper focuses then on the new legislation on corporate governance which entered into force on May 1,...

Using data on China's split-share structure reform that floats non-tradable shares, we find that Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors (QFIIs) have greater influence over the controlling state shareholders than local mutual funds. QFIIs are less prone to political pressure and are more...

This study examines changes in block ownership for a large sample of listed and non-listed German firms. The frequency of block trading is similar to other countries, and the vast majority of block trades leads to changes in ultimate ownership (control transfers). Such changes are more likely...