Control of Corporate Decisions: Shareholders vs. Management

Milton Harris () and Artur Raviv

The Review of Financial Studies, 2010, vol. 23, issue 11, 4115-4147

Abstract: This article addresses the issue of whether shareholders would be better off with enhanced control over corporate decisions. The issue has been hotly debated in the recent literature. Our main contribution is to use formal modeling to uncover some factors overlooked in these arguments. For example, we show that claims that shareholder control would reduce value because shareholders lack sufficient information to make important decisions or because they have a non-value-maximizing agenda are flawed. We also show, however, that even if shareholders seek to maximize firm value and can delegate decisions to management, shareholders should not control all major decisions. The Author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org., Oxford University Press.

Date: 2010
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