One Share – One Vote - new evidence from the Nordic countries

This paper examines how ownership concentration affects investment performance, and in particular how deviations from the one share-one vote principle affect this ownershipperformance relationship. Using a unique panel from the Nordic countries the so-called incentive and managerial entrenchment effects are isolated. To this end a measure of marginal q is used to evaluate performance. This is a theoretically and empirically more appropriate measure of performance as compared to Tobin’s q. The main finding is that ownership concentration improves performance, whereas dual-class shares reduce the incentive effect and enhance the managerial entrenchment effect. On average, firms with dual-class shares over-invest. JEL Codes: G 30, C 23, L25