Corporate Control across the World

230 Pages Posted: 21 Jun 2019

See all articles by Gur Aminadav

Gur Aminadav

London Business School

Elias Papaioannou

London Business School; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Date Written: April 11, 2019

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, family firms, government ownership, investor protection, law and finance, ownership concentration, regulation

JEL Classification: G30, K00, N20

Suggested Citation

Aminadav, Gur and Papaioannou, Elias, Corporate Control across the World (April 11, 2019). Journal of Finance, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3404596 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3404596

Gur Aminadav

London Business School ( email )

Sussex Place
Regent's Park
London, London NW1 4SA
United Kingdom

Elias Papaioannou (Contact Author)

London Business School ( email )

Sussex Place
Regent's Park
London, London NW1 4SA
United Kingdom

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) ( email )

London
United Kingdom

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