Ownership structure and market efficiency

We present a framework to analyze the impact of ownership structure on stockholder/manager conflicts. We first predict that, in an inefficient market, investors motivate managers to pursue a higher return on equity instead of a higher return on asset, and that this focus on short-term performance leads to leverage distortion. Using a sample of late nineteenth- to early twentieth-century Japanese firms, we show that mediocre performing firms boosted the return on equity by bond flotation, and a higher president-ownership concentration raised the return on asset and controlled bond leverage. Thus, president-ownership concentration offsets market inefficiency.