This research extends agency theory by exploring the influence of varied, competing, principal interests on executive actions. Findings reveal that ownership of a firm by dedicated institutional investors, who hold concentrated portfolios over time, is positively associated with firm use of strategic competitive actions. Ownership by transient institutional investors, who hold broad portfolios ...

Introduction Most small firms will never be able to raise all the funding they would like from banks and other institutions. In this crude sense there will always be a deficiency in the funding of the sector equal to the difference between the total demand for funding and that part of this demand which qualifies for funding support. This paper focuses more narrowly on the debt versus equity pre...

Using hand-collected data, we study the evolution, causes, and economic effects of the pyramidal ownership structure in China’s listed firms over 2001-2008. We quantitatively characterize the use of pyramidal structure by private firms and local state controlled firms. We find that private owners in China show strong incentives to build more extensive pyramids in weak institutional environments...

We draw on a series of in-depth interviews with senior fund managers and senior company executives to explore how different and often-contradictory conceptualizations of institutional investors, their role in the corporate governance process, and their interactions with corporate management, are reflected in the attitudes and perceptions of the actors concerned. We find that while conceptualiza...

This article shows that the COVID-19 pandemic exposed informal institutional voids exist for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) business owners in United Kingdom. Based on a primary database of surveys semi-structured interviews, results show many BAME small medium-sized enterprise (SME) encountered White SME did not face during pandemic. The also how these created value amid they can cont...

America’s securities markets constitute a central distinguishing feature of its brand of capitalism. What are their political origins? In contrast to arguments which point to business owners as determining the institutional foundations of America’s political economy, this paper argues that farmers played a leading role. Indeed, the rules and regulations governing U.S. securities markets were cr...

Using a data set for 162 largest Hungarian firms during the period of 1994-1999 this paper explores the determinants of equity shares held by foreign investors and by Hungarian institutional investors.. We find evidence of a post-privatisation evolution towards more homogeneus equity structures, where dominant categories of owners aim at achieving controlling stakes. Here, the foreign investors...

The traditional view that excise taxes are regressive has been challenged. I document the history of the term regressive tax, show that traditional definitions have always found cigarette taxes to be regressive, and illustrate the implications of the greater price responsiveness observed among the poor. I explain the different definitions of tax burden: accounting, welfare-based willingness to ...