This paper conducts a crosscountry empirical study of the impact of institutions and agency conflicts on ownership reforms and their implications for changes in performance and efficiency. We examine two main questions. First, we evaluate the effects of certain property rights and institutional quality measures on performance and efficiency. We find that property rights and contracting rights p...

The paper shows that the difference in aggregate volatility risk can explain why several anomalies are stronger among the stocks with low institutional ownership (IO). Because of their desire to hedge against aggregate volatility or to exploit their competitive advantage in obtaining and processing information, coupled with the dislike of uncertainty and volatility, institutions tend to stay aw...

This paper investigates whether proximity to institutional shareholders influences corporate policies. We find that firms with high local institutional ownership are more profitable, less risky, and have a better governance structure. Specifically, these firms are less likely to engage in undesirable corporate activities such as aggressive earnings management or option back-dating and are there...

Article history: Received 10 October 2014 Received in revised form 2 September 2015 Accepted 3 September 2015 Available online 8 September 2015 This study examines the effects of stock liquidity on firm value and corporate governance using the Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) setting. The unique features of the REIT industry, including homogeneity of the investment structures, the high payou...

A large fraction of US public stock is held by institutional investors that frequently hold shares in multiple firms in the same industry (“common ownership”). Concerns have been raised that common ownership might harm competition if it confers influence over important strategic decisions. Using data from the airline industry, we estimate the effects of common ownership on airline prices using ...

Despite the extraordinarily high ownership concentration widely observed in emerging market firms as a result of institutional voids, there is little research on how this high ownership concentration affects the exporting behavior of emerging market firms. From principal–agent and institutional perspectives, we hypothesize that high ownership concentration has a negative relationship with expor...

Pharmaceutical firms can apply for the Food and Drug Administration to 'fast track' research and de velopment on new drugs, accelerating clinical trials and expediting regulatory review required prior to marketing to consumers. We investigate security market reaction to more than 100 fast track designations from 1998 to 2004. Fast track designation appears to enhance investor recognition of fir...

This paper shows that the positive correlation between the presence of institutional investors and a firm’s likelihood of being acquired is due to ownership endogeneity, i.e., due to the fact that institutions are better informed investors. After controlling for this ownership endogeneity, the presence of institutional investors reduces the probability of being acquired. There is also evidence ...

The study examines the relationship between Board Composition and Earnings Management. A set of listed Companies have been investigated to analyze the relationship for the year 2003 to 2007. Board Composition has been measured by Board independence, and Institutional ownership. Whereas earnings management has been quantified by discretionary accruals. Modified Cross Sectional Jones Model (1995)...

Using holdings data on a representative sample of all Shanghai Stock Exchange investors, we show that increases in ownership breadth (the fraction of market participants who own a stock) predict low returns: highest change quintile stocks underperform lowest quintile stocks by 23% per year. Small retail investors drive this result. Retail ownership breadth increases appear to be correlated with...