IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jfinan/v77y2022i1p213-264.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Institutional Investors and Corporate Governance: The Incentive to Be Engaged

Author

Listed:
  • JONATHAN LEWELLEN
  • KATHARINA LEWELLEN

Abstract

This paper studies institutional investors’ incentives to be engaged shareholders. In 2017, the average institution gains an extra $129,000 in annual management fees if a stockholding increases 1% in value, considering both the direct effect on assets under management and the indirect effect on subsequent fund flows. The estimates range from $19,600 for investments in small firms to $307,600 for investments in large firms. Institutional shareholders in one firm often gain when the firm's competitors do well, by virtue of institutions’ holdings in those firms, but the impact of common ownership is modest in the most concentrated industries.

Suggested Citation

  • Jonathan Lewellen & Katharina Lewellen, 2022. "Institutional Investors and Corporate Governance: The Incentive to Be Engaged," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 77(1), pages 213-264, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jfinan:v:77:y:2022:i:1:p:213-264
    DOI: 10.1111/jofi.13085
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/jofi.13085
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/jofi.13085?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Itzhak Ben-DAVID & Francesco A. FRANZONI & Rabih MOUSSAWI & John SEDUNOV III, 2015. "The Granular Nature of Large Institutional Investors," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 15-67, Swiss Finance Institute, revised Apr 2016.
    2. Clemens Sialm & T. Mandy Tham, 2016. "Spillover Effects in Mutual Fund Companies," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(5), pages 1472-1486, May.
    3. Philippe Aghion & John Van Reenen & Luigi Zingales, 2013. "Innovation and Institutional Ownership," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(1), pages 277-304, February.
    4. Lucian A. Bebchuk & Alma Cohen & Scott Hirst, 2017. "The Agency Problems of Institutional Investors," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(3), pages 89-102, Summer.
    5. Brian J. Hall & Jeffrey B. Liebman, 1998. "Are CEOs Really Paid Like Bureaucrats?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(3), pages 653-691.
    6. Jongha Lim & Berk A. Sensoy & Michael S. Weisbach, 2016. "Indirect Incentives of Hedge Fund Managers," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(2), pages 871-918, April.
    7. Khorana, Ajay & Servaes, Henri, 1999. "The Determinants of Mutual Fund Starts," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 12(5), pages 1043-1074.
    8. Strickland, Deon & Wiles, Kenneth W. & Zenner, Marc, 1996. "A requiem for the USA Is small shareholder monitoring effective?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 319-338, February.
    9. Gillan, Stuart L. & Starks, Laura T., 2000. "Corporate governance proposals and shareholder activism: the role of institutional investors," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 275-305, August.
    10. Gilje, Erik P. & Gormley, Todd A. & Levit, Doron, 2020. "Who's paying attention? Measuring common ownership and its impact on managerial incentives," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(1), pages 152-178.
    11. Dragana Cvijanović & Amil Dasgupta & Konstantinos E. Zachariadis, 2016. "Ties That Bind: How Business Connections Affect Mutual Fund Activism," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(6), pages 2933-2966, December.
    12. Chevalier, Judith & Ellison, Glenn, 1997. "Risk Taking by Mutual Funds as a Response to Incentives," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(6), pages 1167-1200, December.
    13. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1986. "Large Shareholders and Corporate Control," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(3), pages 461-488, June.
    14. Ji-Woong Chung & Berk A. Sensoy & Léa Stern & Michael S. Weisbach, 2012. "Pay for Performance from Future Fund Flows: The Case of Private Equity," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(11), pages 3259-3304.
    15. repec:oup:rfinst:v:25:y::i:11:p:3259-3304 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Stephen L. Nesbitt, 1994. "LONG‐TERM REWARDS FROM SHAREHOLDER ACTIVISM: A STUDY OF THE “CalPERS EFFECT”," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 6(4), pages 75-80, January.
    17. Gantchev, Nickolay, 2013. "The costs of shareholder activism: Evidence from a sequential decision model," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(3), pages 610-631.
    18. Gerard Hoberg & Gordon Phillips, 2010. "Product Market Synergies and Competition in Mergers and Acquisitions: A Text-Based Analysis," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(10), pages 3773-3811, October.
    19. Lewellen, Jonathan, 2011. "Institutional investors and the limits of arbitrage," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 62-80, October.
    20. Fich, Eliezer M. & Harford, Jarrad & Tran, Anh L., 2015. "Motivated monitors: The importance of institutional investors׳ portfolio weights," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 21-48.
    21. JOSEPH A. McCAHERY & ZACHARIAS SAUTNER & LAURA T. STARKS, 2016. "Behind the Scenes: The Corporate Governance Preferences of Institutional Investors," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(6), pages 2905-2932, December.
    22. Bresnahan, Timothy F. & Salop, Steven C., 1986. "Quantifying the competitive effects of production joint ventures," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 155-175, June.
    23. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:4:p:1335-1362 is not listed on IDEAS
    24. Massa, Massimo, 2003. "How do family strategies affect fund performance? When performance-maximization is not the only game in town," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 249-304, February.
    25. Vikram Nanda, 2004. "Family Values and the Star Phenomenon: Strategies of Mutual Fund Families," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 17(3), pages 667-698.
    26. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:5:p:1589-1622 is not listed on IDEAS
    27. Appel, Ian R. & Gormley, Todd A. & Keim, Donald B., 2016. "Passive investors, not passive owners," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 111-141.
    28. Aggarwal, Reena & Erel, Isil & Ferreira, Miguel & Matos, Pedro, 2011. "Does governance travel around the world? Evidence from institutional investors," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(1), pages 154-181, April.
    29. Gerard Hoberg & Gordon Phillips, 2016. "Text-Based Network Industries and Endogenous Product Differentiation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(5), pages 1423-1465.
    30. Davis, Gerald F. & Kim, E. Han, 2007. "Business ties and proxy voting by mutual funds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 552-570, August.
    31. Jie (Jack) He & Jiekun Huang, 2017. "Product Market Competition in a World of Cross-Ownership: Evidence from Institutional Blockholdings," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(8), pages 2674-2718.
    32. Alon Brav & Wei Jiang & Frank Partnoy & Randall Thomas, 2008. "Hedge Fund Activism, Corporate Governance, and Firm Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(4), pages 1729-1775, August.
    33. Wahal, Sunil, 1996. "Pension Fund Activism and Firm Performance," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 31(1), pages 1-23, March.
    34. Jay C. Hartzell & Laura T. Starks, 2003. "Institutional Investors and Executive Compensation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(6), pages 2351-2374, December.
    35. Lewellen, Katharina & Lowry, Michelle, 2021. "Does common ownership really increase firm coordination?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(1), pages 322-344.
    36. Koch, Andrew & Panayides, Marios & Thomas, Shawn, 2021. "Common ownership and competition in product markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(1), pages 109-137.
    37. Jegadeesh, Narasimhan & Titman, Sheridan, 1993. "Returns to Buying Winners and Selling Losers: Implications for Stock Market Efficiency," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(1), pages 65-91, March.
    38. Guercio, Diane Del & Hawkins, Jennifer, 1999. "The motivation and impact of pension fund activism," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 293-340, June.
    39. Darwin Choi & Bige Kahraman & Abhiroop Mukherjee, 2016. "Learning about Mutual Fund Managers," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(6), pages 2809-2860, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jing Lu & Guohua Cao & Chuan Lin & Stavros Sindakis & Saloome Showkat, 2024. "Examining the Governance Effect of Institutional Investors on Stock Price Crash Risk," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 15(2), pages 9053-9081, June.
    2. Skarlicki, Daniel & Lo, Kin & Rogo, Rafael & Avolio, Bruce J. & DeHaas, CodieAnn, 2023. "The role of CEO accounts and perceived integrity in analysts’ forecasts," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    3. Banal-Estanol, Albert & Seldeslachts, Jo & Vives, Xavier, 2022. "Ownership Diversification and Product Market Pricing Incentives," CEPR Discussion Papers 17686, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Xingtang Wang & Leonard F. S. Wang & Huizhong Liu, 2024. "Cross-ownership and managerial delegation under vertical product differentiation," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 143(2), pages 161-181, October.
    5. Lu, Shuai & Li, Shouwei, 2023. "Is institutional herding efficient? Evidence from an investment efficiency and informational network perspective," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    6. Rahimi Mansoor & Shaista & Subhan Ullah & Rovaid Ullah, 2024. "The Impact of ESG on Financial Performance of Top 100 Companies of Pakistan," Bulletin of Business and Economics (BBE), Research Foundation for Humanity (RFH), vol. 13(3), pages 14-20.
    7. Berle, Erika & He, Wanwei & Odegaard, Bernt Arne, 2022. "The expected returns of ESG excluded stocks. The case of exclusions from Norway's Oil Fund," UiS Working Papers in Economics and Finance 2022/3, University of Stavanger.
    8. Estrin, Saul & Hanousek, Jan & Shamshur, Anastasiya, 2024. "Does it matter who owns firms? Evidence on the impact of supermajority control on private firms in Europe," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 95(PB).
    9. Gormley, Todd A. & Gupta, Vishal K. & Matsa, David A. & Mortal, Sandra C. & Yang, Lukai, 2023. "The Big Three and board gender diversity: The effectiveness of shareholder voice," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 149(2), pages 323-348.
    10. Zhihao Wang & Kezhi Liao & Sisi Wang, 2024. "Institutional investor horizons, ownership structure and investment efficiency in China," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 64(1), pages 739-782, March.
    11. Loureiro, Gilberto & Mendonça, Cesar, 2024. "Do large registered investment funds undermine shareholder activism? Evidence from hedge fund proposals," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    12. Chinco, Alex & Sammon, Marco, 2024. "The passive ownership share is double what you think it is," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    13. Xiaoqiong Wang & Siqi Wei & Xiaoyang Zhu, 2024. "Economic policy uncertainty and heterogeneous institutional investor horizons," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 62(1), pages 39-67, January.
    14. Martijn Boermans & Rients Galema, 2023. "Carbon home bias of European investors," Working Papers 786, DNB.
    15. Dongmin Kong & Jia Liu & Yanan Wang & Ling Zhu, 2024. "Employee Stock Ownership Plans and Corporate Environmental Engagement," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 189(1), pages 177-199, January.
    16. Philip Teng Lin & Yanhui Jin & Fei Gao & Ruifeng Yang & Qian Lin, 2023. "Institutional Investors, CSR Report Readability and the Moderating Role of ESG Performance," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, November.
    17. Anisa Safiah Maznorbalia & Muhammad Aiman Awalluddin & Ardzlyn Hawatul Yuhanis Ayob, 2023. "Exploring the role of institutional investors in voting, monitoring and dialogue engagement in mitigating agency conflict in Malaysia’s public listed companies," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-9, December.
    18. Jiang, George & Kenchington, David & McLemore, Ping & Yüksel, H.Zafer, 2024. "Disaggregation quality, stock returns, and institutional demand," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 62(PB).
    19. Zhang, Han & Li, Minghui & Yang, Yujie, 2024. "Does common institutional ownership constrain related party transactions? Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 93(PB), pages 1015-1042.
    20. Tahir Ahmad Wani & Arunima Haldar & Irfan Rashid Ganie, 2023. "In What Contexts Institutional Investors Can Be Catalyst? The Moderating Role of Corporate Governance," International Journal of Global Business and Competitiveness, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 70-79, June.
    21. Chung, Chune Young & Kim, Hye Seok & Liu, Chang, 2024. "Institutional monitoring on corporate earnings: Evidence from U.S. Cross-listed Firms," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    22. Kristopher Gerardi & Michelle Lowry & Carola Schenone, 2023. "A Critical Review of the Common Ownership Literature," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2023-17, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    23. Gao, Bin & Zhang, Jinlong & Xie, Jun & Zhang, Wenjie, 2023. "The impact of carbon risk on the pricing efficiency of the capital market: Evidence from a natural experiment in china," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    24. Athira, A. & Lukose, P.J. Jijo, 2023. "Do common institutional owners' activisms deter tax avoidance? Evidence from an emerging economy," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).

    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. Dasgupta, Amil & Fos, Vyacheslav & Sautner, Zacharias, 2021. "Institutional investors and corporate governance," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 112114, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Farizo, Joseph D., 2022. "(Black)Rock the vote: Index funds and opposition to management," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    3. Schmidt, Cornelius & Fahlenbrach, Rüdiger, 2017. "Do exogenous changes in passive institutional ownership affect corporate governance and firm value?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(2), pages 285-306.
    4. Edmans, Alex & Holderness, Clifford, 2016. "Blockholders: A Survey of Theory and Evidence," CEPR Discussion Papers 11442, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Chung, Chune Young & Song, Jun Myung, 2024. "Institutional investors by nationality and long-term investor value appropriation," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(PB).
    6. Zhang, Bobo & Zhang, Zhou, 2022. "Shining light on corporate political spending: Evidence from shareholder engagements," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    7. Appel, Ian R. & Gormley, Todd A. & Keim, Donald B., 2016. "Passive investors, not passive owners," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 111-141.
    8. Chen, Shenglan & Ma, Hui & Wu, Qiang & Zhang, Hao, 2023. "Does common ownership constrain managerial rent extraction? Evidence from insider trading profitability," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    9. Bing Guo & Dennis C. Hutschenreiter & David Pérez-Castrillo & Anna Toldrà-Simats, 2023. "Institutional Blockholders and Corporate Innovation," Working Papers 1390, Barcelona School of Economics.
    10. Crane, Alan D. & Koch, Andrew & Michenaud, Sébastien, 2019. "Institutional investor cliques and governance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(1), pages 175-197.
    11. Denes, Matthew R. & Karpoff, Jonathan M. & McWilliams, Victoria B., 2017. "Thirty years of shareholder activism: A survey of empirical research," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 405-424.
    12. Jiekun Huang, 2023. "Thy Neighbor’s Vote: Peer Effects in Proxy Voting," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(7), pages 4169-4189, July.
    13. Nicole Boyson & Robert Mooradian, 2011. "Corporate governance and hedge fund activism," Review of Derivatives Research, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 169-204, July.
    14. Harford, Jarrad & Kecskés, Ambrus & Mansi, Sattar, 2018. "Do long-term investors improve corporate decision making?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 424-452.
    15. Aguilera, Ruth & Bermejo, Vicente & Capapé, Javier & Cuñat, Vicente, 2021. "The systemic governance influence of universal owners: evidence from an expectation document," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 118899, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    16. Bayona, Anna & López, Ángel L. & Manganelli, Anton-Giulio, 2022. "Common ownership, corporate control and price competition," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 1066-1075.
    17. Park, Jihwon & Sani, Jalal & Shroff, Nemit & White, Hal, 2019. "Disclosure incentives when competing firms have common ownership," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 387-415.
    18. Richard Chung & Scott Fung & Szu-Yin Hung, 2012. "Institutional Investors and Firm Efficiency of Real Estate Investment Trusts," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 171-211, June.
    19. Yu‐Luen Ma & Yayuan Ren, 2021. "Insurer risk and performance before, during, and after the 2008 financial crisis: The role of monitoring institutional ownership," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 88(2), pages 351-380, June.
    20. Nain, Amrita & Yao, Tong, 2013. "Mutual fund skill and the performance of corporate acquirers," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(2), pages 437-456.

    More about this item

    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:bla:jfinan:v:77:y:2022:i:1:p:213-264. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/afaaaea.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.