IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/121693.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Corporate ownership structure and performance in Europe

Author

Listed:
  • Grant, Jeremy
  • Kirchmaier, Thomas

Abstract

In this paper, we show that ownership structures vary considerably across Europe, and that the dominant form of ownership is not necessarily the most efficient one. These findings are in contradiction to similar research based on US samples. The results also demonstrate that firms without a dominant shareholder tend to outperform their country peer groups. We base our analysis on a new and unique dataset of uniform ownership data of the largest 100 firms in the five major European economies. We quantify the differences in ownership by comparing three distinct ownership structures of firms and relating them to performance. For the first time we employ a Hodrick-Prescott Filter, a methodology widely used in macroeconomics to isolate the trend growth components from cyclical fluctuations, to estimate the share price trend of each firm. We take this trend as a good indirect indicator of the quality of governance.

Suggested Citation

  • Grant, Jeremy & Kirchmaier, Thomas, 2004. "Corporate ownership structure and performance in Europe," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 121693, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:121693
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/121693/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997. "A Survey of Corporate Governance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(2), pages 737-783, June.
    2. Marco Becht & Colin Mayer, 2002. "Corporate control in Europe," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 112(4), pages 471-498.
    3. Alexander Dyck & Luigi Zingales, 2004. "Private Benefits of Control: An International Comparison," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 59(2), pages 537-600, April.
    4. Alfred Marshall, 1897. "The Old Generation of Economists and the New," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 11(2), pages 115-135.
    5. La Porta, Rafael & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1997. "Legal Determinants of External Finance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(3), pages 1131-1150, July.
    6. Amihud, Yakov & Mendelson, Haim, 1986. "Asset pricing and the bid-ask spread," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 223-249, December.
    7. Demsetz, Harold & Lehn, Kenneth, 1985. "The Structure of Corporate Ownership: Causes and Consequences," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(6), pages 1155-1177, December.
    8. Grossman, Sanford J. & Hart, Oliver D., 1988. "One share-one vote and the market for corporate control," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1-2), pages 175-202, January.
    9. Harold Demsetz, 1968. "The Cost of Transacting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 82(1), pages 33-53.
    10. Barca, Fabrizio & Becht, Marco (ed.), 2001. "The Control of Corporate Europe," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199247424.
    11. Lucian Arye Bebchuk, 1999. "A Rent-Protection Theory of Corporate Ownership and Control," NBER Working Papers 7203, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Roll, Richard, 1983. "On computing mean returns and the small firm premium," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 371-386, November.
    13. Bengt Holmstrom & Steven N. Kaplan, 2001. "Corporate Governance and Merger Activity in the United States: Making Sense of the 1980s and 1990s," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 121-144, Spring.
    14. Demsetz, Harold & Villalonga, Belen, 2001. "Ownership structure and corporate performance," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 209-233, September.
    15. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2003. "Has the Business Cycle Changed and Why?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2002, Volume 17, pages 159-230, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. King, Robert G. & Rebelo, Sergio T., 1993. "Low frequency filtering and real business cycles," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 17(1-2), pages 207-231.
    17. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez‐De‐Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 1999. "Corporate Ownership Around the World," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(2), pages 471-517, April.
    18. Acemoglu, Daron & Robinson, James A., 2000. "Democratization or repression?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(4-6), pages 683-693, May.
    19. Faccio, Mara & Lang, Larry H. P., 2002. "The ultimate ownership of Western European corporations," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 365-395, September.
    20. Marco Becht & Fabrizio Barca, 2001. "The control of corporate Europe," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/13302, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    21. Aaron S. Edlin & Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2008. "Discouraging Rivals: Managerial Rent-Seeking and Economic Inefficiencies," Springer Books, in: Roger D. Congleton & Kai A. Konrad & Arye L. Hillman (ed.), 40 Years of Research on Rent Seeking 2, pages 609-620, Springer.
    22. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2003. "Has the Business Cycle Changed? Evidence and Explanations," Working Papers 2003-2, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    23. Stoll, Hans R. & Whaley, Robert E., 1983. "Transaction costs and the small firm effect," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 57-79, June.
    24. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    25. Bengt Holmstrom & Steven N. Kaplan, 2001. "Corporate Governance and Merger Activity in the U.S.: Making Sense of the 1980s and 1990s," NBER Working Papers 8220, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Grant, Jeremy & Kirchmaier, Thomas, 2004. "Corporate ownership structure and performance in Europe," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 19960, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Jeremy Grant & Thomas Kirchmaier, 2004. "Corporate Ownership Structure and Performance in Europe," CEP Discussion Papers dp0631, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    3. Weiß, Christian, 2010. "The Ownership Concentration of Firms: Three Essays on the Determinants and Effects," EconStor Theses, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 30247, March.
    4. Becht, Marco & Bolton, Patrick & Roell, Ailsa, 2003. "Corporate governance and control," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 1, pages 1-109, Elsevier.
    5. Zeineb Barka & Taher Hamza, 2020. "The effect of large controlling shareholders on equity prices in France: monitoring or entrenchment?," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 24(3), pages 769-798, September.
    6. Martynova, M., 2006. "The market for corporate control and corporate governance regulation in Europe," Other publications TiSEM 8651e281-4914-41f2-ac14-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    7. Goergen, Marc & Manjon, Miguel C. & Renneboog, Luc, 2008. "Recent developments in German corporate governance," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 175-193, September.
    8. San Martin-Reyna, J.M. & Duran-Encalada, Jorge A., 2012. "The relationship among family business, corporate governance and firm performance: Evidence from the Mexican stock exchange," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 106-117.
    9. T. Biebuyck & Ariane Chapelle & Ariane Szafarz, 2002. "Les leviers de contrôle des actionnaires majoritaires," Working Papers CEB 03-001.RS, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    10. Hamadi, Malika & Heinen, Andréas, 2015. "Firm performance when ownership is very concentrated: Evidence from a semiparametric panel," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 172-194.
    11. Mike Burkart & Samuel Lee, 2008. "One Share - One Vote: the Theory," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 12(1), pages 1-49.
    12. Claessens, Stijn & Yurtoglu, B. Burcin, 2013. "Corporate governance in emerging markets: A survey," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 15(C), pages 1-33.
    13. Marc van Essen & J. (Hans) van Oosterhout & Pursey P. M. A. R. Heugens, 2013. "Competition and Cooperation in Corporate Governance: The Effects of Labor Institutions on Blockholder Effectiveness in 23 European Countries," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(2), pages 530-551, April.
    14. Renée Adams & Daniel Ferreira, 2008. "One Share-One Vote: The Empirical Evidence," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 12(1), pages 51-91.
    15. Mike Burkart & Fausto Panunzi & Andrei Shleifer, 2003. "Family Firms," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(5), pages 2167-2201, October.
    16. Bennedsen, Morten & Meisner, Kasper, Nielsen, 2006. "The Principle of Proportionality," Working Papers 22-2005, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Economics.
    17. Thomsen, Steen & Pedersen, Torben & Kvist, Hans Kurt, 2006. "Blockholder ownership: Effects on firm value in market and control based governance systems," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 246-269, January.
    18. Marc Goergen, 2005. "Corporate Governance Convergence: Evidence From Takeover Regulation Reforms in Europe," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 21(2), pages 243-268, Summer.
    19. repec:zbw:iamost:254051 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Matyukha, Andriy, 2017. "Business groups in agriculture. Impact of ownership structures on performance: The case of Russia's agroholdings," Studies on the Agricultural and Food Sector in Transition Economies, Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO), volume 85, number 85.
    21. Munari, Federico & Oriani, Raffaele & Sobrero, Maurizio, 2010. "The effects of owner identity and external governance systems on R&D investments: A study of Western European firms," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(8), pages 1093-1104, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    corporate governance; ownership structures; performance; Europe;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
    • G38 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Government Policy and Regulation

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:121693. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.