This paper summarizes the key results of the papers published in this special issue as well as highlights recent developments in the related literature. The special issue includes papers on CEO successions, the boards of directors of financial institutions, board independence, gender balance and...

This paper studies the factors that influence the CEO succession decision in family firms whose incumbent CEO is a member of the controlling family. The sample includes all such firms from France, Germany and the UK. We propose a new measure of directors' independence, which adjusts for various...

This paper studies the impact of the concentration of control, the type of controlling shareholder and the dividend tax preference of the controlling shareholder on dividend policy for a panel of 220 German firms over 1984-2005. While the concentration of control does not have an effect on the...

This multidisciplinary book takes an innovative approach to corporate governance by linking governance and complexity theory. It provides important new insights into why governance systems are failing and what may be done to improve this situation.

This paper investigates the market's reaction to U.K. insider transactions and analyzes whether the reaction depends on the firm's ownership. We present three major findings. First, differences in regulation between the U.K. and United States, in particular the speedier reporting of trades in...

This paper contributes to a growing literature on politics and corporate governance by providing an empirical analysis of the impact of political factors on dividend payouts. The focus is on the determinants of dividend policy in U.K. public companies between 1949 and 2002. We augment Lintner's...

The first striking feature is that ownership of the average UK company is diffuse: a coalition of at least eight shareholders is required to reach an absolute majority of voting rights. Even though the average firm has a dispersed ownership, the reader should bear in mind that there are about...

Companies have the choice to deviate from their national corporate governance standards by opting into another system. They can do so via contractual devices - such as cross-border mergers and acquisitions, (re)incorporations, and cross-listings - which enable them to choose their preferred...

This paper explains the choice of the cross-listing location with particular emphasis on the level of investor protection provided by the host market. We find that firms with concentrated control, with a higher level of risk and those with more pronounced financing needs cross-list on a market...