IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jaecon/v80y2025i2s016541012500045x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cross-border investment, deterrence, and compliance effects of ownership transparency

Author

Listed:
  • Amberger, Harald J.
  • Wilde, Jaron H.
  • Wu, Yuchen

Abstract

We exploit the staggered adoption of beneficial ownership registers in the EU to study (i) whether and how the requirement to disclose information on an entity's ultimate human owner (ownership transparency) shapes cross-border investment, (ii) whether ownership transparency deters “potentially illicit” versus “likely legitimate” activity, and (iii) which types of firms try to avoid ownership disclosure. We find that investment from non-EU financial havens into the EU declines significantly after countries adopt ownership registers. Public scrutiny and enforcement emerge as key factors shaping this decline. Further, potentially illicit actors do not appear to alter their investment behavior. Instead, they appear less likely to comply with the transparency regulation. Our findings provide insights relevant to regulation aimed at enhancing ownership transparency.

Suggested Citation

  • Amberger, Harald J. & Wilde, Jaron H. & Wu, Yuchen, 2025. "Cross-border investment, deterrence, and compliance effects of ownership transparency," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(2).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jaecon:v:80:y:2025:i:2:s016541012500045x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jacceco.2025.101809
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016541012500045X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jacceco.2025.101809?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D25 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Intertemporal Firm Choice: Investment, Capacity, and Financing
    • F23 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Multinational Firms; International Business
    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies
    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance

    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:eee:jaecon:v:80:y:2025:i:2:s016541012500045x. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jae .

    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.