Corporate Groups

Been There, Done That. The History of Corporate Ownership in Japan

The State as Owner - China's Experience

This essay explores China’s experience with state ownership of business enterprise. After a short historical survey of the rise, fall, and re-emergence of the state-owned enterprise (SOE) as a form of business organization, the...

The End of the Corporation

We are witnessing a quiet but quick transformation of corporate governance. The rise of digital technologies and social media are forcing companies to reconsider how they organize themselves and structure firm governance. What...

Equity Issuance Methods and Dilution

We analyze rights and public offerings when informed shareholders strategically choose to subscribe. Absent wealth constraints, rights offerings achieve the full information outcome and dominate public offerings. When some...

Implicit Communication and Enforcement of Corporate Disclosure Regulation

The communication of non-public information in private meetings between corporate officials and financial analysts presents a distinctive regulatory challenge. One reason is that there typically is no record of what transpires in a...

The Politics of CEOs

This article studies the political preferences of chief executive officers (CEOs) of public companies. We use Federal Election Commission records to compile a comprehensive database of the political contributions made by more than...

Long-Term Bias

An emerging consensus in certain legal, business, and scholarly communities maintains that corporate managers are pressured unduly into chasing short-term gains at the expense of superior long-term prospects. The forces inducing...

Which Related Party Transactions Should Be Subject to Ex Ante Review? Evidence from Germany

The amended EU shareholder rights directive introduces a comprehensive regime of ex ante review for potentially conflicted transactions between listed companies and their major shareholders, downstream entities, and managers....

Bringing the AGM to the 21st Century: Blockchain and Smart Contracting Tech for Shareholder Involvement

The AGM is often considered to play an important role in direct shareholder monitoring of directors and corporate blockholders. However, its practical functioning suffers from large obstacles. In this research we outline the...

The Great Pyramids of America: A Revised History of US Business Groups, Corporate Ownership and Regulation, 1930-1950

Most listed firms are freestanding in the U.S, while listed firms in other countries often belong to business groups: lasting structures in which listed firms control other listed firms. Hand-collected historical data illuminate how...

Groups of Companies - A Comparative Study on the Economics, Law and Regulation of Corporate Groups

The phenomenon of groups of companies is very common in modern corporate reality. The empirical data on groups of companies are heterogeneous because they are collected for very different regulatory and other objectives. Two main...

Related Party Transactions: Policy Options and Real-World Challenges (With a Critique of the European Commission Proposal)

This paper provides a legal and policy analysis of transactions between a corporation and one of its ?related parties.? It first highlights the reasons why related party transactions (?RPTs?) are so common around the world. Next, it...