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How Weak is the Weakest-Link Principle? On the Measurement of Firm Owners’ Control Rights

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Author Info
Jeremy Edwards ()
Alfons Weichenrieder ()

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Abstract

The paper argues that the weakest link principle, which has been widely used as a measure of ultimate owners’ control rights, has a number of serious problems. A theoretically more satisfactory method of measuring control rights, based on voting power indices, is proposed, and the different measures are compared using a sample of large listed German firms. The different measures produce very different results. But, whichever measure is used, taking account of pyramid ownership structures has little effect on the values of control and cashflow rights. The results also show that neither first-tier nor ultimate control rights measures are adequate on their own, suggesting that further work on ownership structure and pyramids is required to obtain satisfactory measures of large owners’ control rights.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by CESifo GmbH in its series CESifo Working Paper Series with number CESifo Working Paper No. 1255.

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Date of creation: 2004
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Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_1255

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Related research
Keywords: corporate governance control rights weakest-link principle.

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Capital and Ownership Structure
G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Bergstrom, Clas & Rydqvist, Kristian, 1990. "Ownership of equity in dual-class firms," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 14(2-3), pages 255-269, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Stijn Claessens & Simeon Djankov & Joseph P. H. Fan & Larry H. P. Lang, 2002. "Disentangling the Incentive and Entrenchment Effects of Large Shareholdings," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(6), pages 2741-2771, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Barclay, Michael J. & Holderness, Clifford G., 1989. "Private benefits from control of public corporations," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 371-395, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Claessens, Stijn & Djankov, Simeon & Lang, Larry H. P., 2000. "The separation of ownership and control in East Asian Corporations," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1-2), pages 81-112. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Davidson, Russell & MacKinnon, James G, 1981. "Several Tests for Model Specification in the Presence of Alternative Hypotheses," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(3), pages 781-93, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Wolfgang Eggert & Alfons Weichenrieder & Jeremy S.S. Edwards, 2006. "The Measurement of Firm Ownership and its Effect on Managerial Pay," Working Papers 1, University of Paderborn, CIE Center for International Economics. [Downloadable!]
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