Using a unique sample, we attempt to identify the consequence of the separation between inside ownership and control for firm performance. We exploit the fact that banking institutions may hold their own shares in trust to construct a clean...Read more
We conduct an exploratory analysis of how researchers can address the issue of ?construct validity?, which poses a major challenge to all studies of the effect of corporate governance on firm performance. Many corporate governance studies rely on...Read more
A set of policy experiments regarding binding votes on compensation in Switzerland sheds light on the hitherto mostly theoretical argument that shareholders may prefer to have limits on their own power. The empirical evidence suggests a trade-off...Read more
This paper looks at shareholder activism from the perspective of the revision of the EU Shareholder Rights Directive, which was approved by the European Parliament on 14 March 2017. The main findings are as follows.
First, the effective...Read more
Union and public pension funds, the most prolific institutional activists employing low-cost targeting methods, are often accused of pursuing private benefits. Extant literature finds that unions representing workers, as stakeholders, are not...Read more
Despite the increasing importance of shareholder voting, regulators have paid little attention to the rights of retail investors who own approximately 30% of publicly traded companies but who vote less than 30% of their shares. A substantial...Read more
Preemptive rights are thought to protect minority shareholders from cheap-stock tunneling by a controlling shareholder. We show that preemptive rights, while making cheap-stock tunneling more difficult, cannot prevent it when asymmetric...Read more
Firms can issue stocks classified in many ways. They can be classified in respect to voting rights, dividend rights, redemption rights, conversion rights, and many others. In this study, we ask if it is desirable to give greater freedom to firms...Read more
Index funds and indexed ETFs managed by the “Big Three” – BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street – have grown to be the largest investors in the capital markets and have become the presumptive “deciders” of corporate law controversies. With this...Read more
Currently, the European approach addressing related party transactions is exclusively
relying on the disclosure and partial control of the transaction. Listed European
corporations must provide in a (financial) summarized overview of...Read more
European corporate law and corporate governance are moving ahead beyond expectation. Some British voices called this ?a renaissance in the past decade?. In December 2012, the European Commission came forward with an Action Plan that combines both...Read more
We develop a theory of how the intersection of business goals and the pursuit of ?higher purpose?? something that produces a non-pecuniary social benefit valued by the principal and the agent ? affects economic outcomes. Two types of principals...Read more