The Ownership Concentration of Firms: Three Essays on the Determinants and Effects

The question for the determinants and effects of the ownership concentration of firms is of central concern in the corporate governance literature. It has attracted significant attention in the last decades and has been frequently addressed by renown scholars in the corporate governance area. Most of the existing studies analyzing the determinants of ownership concentration focused on firm-level determinants. Compared to their importance, however, relatively few authors included the industry- or country-level in their analyses, and even fewer accounted for all three levels simultaneously. Furthermore, the relative importance of the three levels has not been quantified so far. This study addresses both issues. First, the relative importance of the firm-, industry-, and country-level, is determined. Second, the by other studies tested and in this study newly identified determinants of ownership concentration are combined in one framework, evaluating their individual and aggregated explanatory power. When it comes to the performance effects of ownership concentration, the existing literature is characterized by a remarkable incongruity in terms of results. The present study accounts concurrently for the so far identified factors potentially influencing the concentration performance relationship, such as endogeneity, curvilinearity, and institutional differences. This study is one of the first in its area to apply multilevel models in order to account for the nested structure of the data. Furthermore, the collected sample is one of the most comprehensive ones in the ownership research. The results yield new insights into the determination of the ownership structure of firms and the ownership concentration performance relationship. The findings help to advance the underlying theoretical frameworks of the determinants and effects of ownership concentration and thus contribute to a deeper understanding of this field.