Capital structure and monitoring by local owners

Taylan Mavruk and Stefan Sjögren

Applied Economics, 2021, vol. 53, issue 40, 4614-4631

Abstract: We examine how owners’ portfolio diversification influences their firms’ financial decision-making and performance. We find that firms with high local ownership use less leverage, but firms with local ownership by locally biased owners use higher debt levels relative to firms with diversified local owners. Firms with high local ownership in urban regions use higher debt levels. In rural regions, firms with high locally biased ownership use higher debt levels relative to firms with diversified local ownership. Finally, although we find weak evidence that firms with high local ownership underperform the market, the underperformance is smaller in firms with high locally biased ownership. Thus, locally biased owners, not local owners with diversified portfolios, have an informed monitoring role in firms, and this effect seems to mitigate negative liquidity consequences. The separation of local owners into those with locally biased and those with diversified portfolios determines when and how local ownership can be used as a good proxy for informed investors.

Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2021.1904127

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