Corporate Control around the World

Elias Papaioannou and Gur Aminadav

No 13706, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: We provide an anatomy of corporate control around the world after tracing controlling shareholders for thousands listed firms from 127 countries between 2004 and 2012. The analysis reveals considerable and persistent differences across and within regions, as well as across legal families. Government and family control is pervasive in civil-law countries. Equity blocks in widely-held corporations are commonplace, but less so in common-law countries. These patterns apply to large, medium, and small listed firms. In contrast, the association between income and corporate control is highly heterogeneous; the correlation is strong among big and especially very large firms, but absent for medium and small listed firms. We then examine the association between corporate control and various institutional features. Shareholder rights against insiders' self-dealing activities correlate strongly with corporate control, though legal formalism and creditor rights less so. Corporate control is strongly related to labor market regulations, concerning, among others, the stringency of employment contracts, the power and extent of unions. The large sample correlations, thus, offer support to both legal origin and political-development theories of financial development.

Keywords: Corporate control; Ownership concentration; Law and finance; Family firms; Government ownership; Investor protection; Regulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G30 K00 N20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cfn and nep-law
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Related works:
Journal Article: Corporate Control around the World (2020)
Working Paper: Corporate Control around the World (2016)
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