Abstract This is the first comprehensive study of distribution voting rights to shareholders. Only individuals owning stock on a record date may vote. Firms, however, reveal dates after fact 91% time. With controversial votes, firms are more likely do opposite, and this tendency associated with lower passage rate for shareholder-initiated proposals. The New York Stock Exchange sells nonpublic r...

Dual-class common stock allows for the separation of voting rights and cash-flow rights across the different classes of equity. We construct a large sample of dual-class firms in the United States and analyze the relationships of insider’s cash-flow rights and voting rights with firm value, performance, and investment behavior. We find that firm value is increasing in the level of cash-flow rig...

Several papers suggest that private benefits can explain the differential pric­ ing between share classes with differential voting rights. However 1 in Brazil the price differential between voting and non-voting shares has been negative for sev­ eral companies between July 1994 and September 2002. This paper investigates the determinants that imply this discount of voting shares vis-a.-vis non-...

T his article presents a textbook exposition of the effects that institutional design of the firm has on allocation of control over assets. The efficient allocation of control over the assets bundled up in the firm is necessary for the optimal allocation of its resources. Dynamic efficiency in resource allocation presupposes that control over firms will change hands when a given allocation turn...

T his article presents a textbook exposition of the effects that institutional design of the firm has on allocation of control over assets. The efficient allocation of control over the assets bundled up in the firm is necessary for the optimal allocation of its resources. Dynamic efficiency in resource allocation presupposes that control over firms will change hands when a given allocation turn...