Abstract
This work provides an empirical investigation of shareholders’ agreements
signed in Italy over the past decade. The evidence shows that agreements
produce a remarkable reshuffling of voting power (Shapley value) among
participants. In particular, the first owner gains much voting power at low
levels of ownership concentration, and his gain is decreasing in his
ownership stake; the opposite happens for the other participants. In
addition, the likelihood that a supermajority rule is included in an
agreement contract is increasing in the first owner’s share of equity. These
findings are consistent with the hypothesis that agreements are used to
correct situations where the first owner’s power is at one of the two
extremes: either too low (leading to insufficient monitoring over managers
and gridlocks in decision-making) or too high (enabling him to extract
large private benefits of control).
Lingua originale | English |
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pagine (da-a) | 4043-4052 |
Numero di pagine | 10 |
Rivista | Applied Economics |
Volume | 43 |
DOI | |
Stato di pubblicazione | Pubblicato - 2011 |
Keywords
- corporate governance