One Share, One Vote: The Empirical Evidence

One Share, One Vote: The Empirical Evidence

Renée Adams, Daniel Ferreira

Series number :

Serial Number: 
177/2007

Date posted :

May 01 2007

Last revised :

SSRN Share

Keywords

  • Disproportional ownership • 
  • mechanisms • 
  • control.

We survey the empirical literature on disproportional ownership, i.e. the use of mechanisms that separate voting rights from cash flow rights in corporations.

Our focus is mostly on explicit mechanisms that allow some shareholders to acquire control with less than proportional economic interest in the firm (dual-class equity structures, stock pyramids, cross-ownership, etc.), but we also briefly discuss other mechanisms, such as takeover defenses and fiduciary voting. We provide a broad overview of different areas in this literature and highlight problems of interpretation that may arise because of empirical difficulties. We outline potentially promising areas for future research.

Published in

Published in: 
Publication Title: 
Review of Finance
Description: 
12 (1), 51-91

Authors