Can banks be owned?

A now well-established literature in economics assesses the effect of different forms of bank ownership on various measures of banks’ performance. Such literature has its theoretical roots in a surprisingly narrow framework, broadly identified with property rights theory. However, such theory – or bundle of theories – has been increasingly criticized for its inability to account for the emergence, the existence and the functioning of business firms. Indeed, many works and authors counter mainstream property rights theory, arguing instead that firms are entities that cannot be possessed – and that equity ownership should not be equaled with firm ownership.