IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/20420.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Governance and Comovement Under Common Ownership

Author

Listed:
  • Alex Edmans
  • Doron Levit
  • Devin Reilly

Abstract

This paper studies the corporate governance and asset pricing implications of investors owning blocks in multiple firms. Common wisdom is that multi-firm ownership weakens governance because the blockholder is spread too thinly. We show that this need not be the case. In a single-firm benchmark, the blockholder governs through exit, selling her stake if the firm underperforms. With multiple firms, the blockholder may sell even a value-maximizing firm, to disguise her exit from another underperforming firm as being motivated by a portfolio-wide liquidity shock. This reduces the manager's effort incentives and weakens governance. On the other hand, governance can be stronger, because selling one firm and not the other is a powerful signal of underperformance. Common ownership leads to firms' stock prices being correlated, even if their fundamentals are uncorrelated. We derive empirical predictions for the direction of correlation and for whether governance is stronger or weaker with multiple firms.

Suggested Citation

  • Alex Edmans & Doron Levit & Devin Reilly, 2014. "Governance and Comovement Under Common Ownership," NBER Working Papers 20420, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20420
    Note: CF LE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w20420.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Harford, Jarrad & Jenter, Dirk & Li, Kai, 2011. "Institutional cross-holdings and their effect on acquisition decisions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 27-39, January.
    2. Ekholm, Anders & Maury, Benjamin, 2014. "Portfolio Concentration and Firm Performance," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(4), pages 903-931, August.
    3. Söhnke M. Bartram & John M. Griffin & Tae-Hoon Lim & David T. Ng, 2015. "How Important Are Foreign Ownership Linkages for International Stock Returns?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 28(11), pages 3036-3072.
    4. Jeremy C. Stein, 1989. "Efficient Capital Markets, Inefficient Firms: A Model of Myopic Corporate Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 104(4), pages 655-669.
    5. Mara Faccio & Maria-Teresa Marchica & Roberto Mura, 2011. "Large Shareholder Diversification and Corporate Risk-Taking," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(11), pages 3601-3641.
    6. Scholes, Myron S, 1972. "The Market for Securities: Substitution versus Price Pressure and the Effects of Information on Share Prices," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 45(2), pages 179-211, April.
    7. Parrino, Robert & Sias, Richard W. & Starks, Laura T., 2003. "Voting with their feet: institutional ownership changes around forced CEO turnover," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 3-46, April.
    8. Alex Edmans & Gustavo Manso, 2011. "Governance Through Trading and Intervention: A Theory of Multiple Blockholders," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(7), pages 2395-2428.
    9. Doron Levit & Nadya Malenko, 2016. "The Labor Market for Directors and Externalities in Corporate Governance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(2), pages 775-808, April.
    10. Viral V. Acharya & Paolo F. Volpin, 2010. "Corporate Governance Externalities," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 14(1), pages 1-33.
    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. Li, Xiao-Lin & Li, Haofei & Ge, Xinyu & Si, Deng-Kui, 2023. "Capital market liberalization and systemic risk of non-financial firms: Evidence from Chinese Stock Connect scheme," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    2. Yusen Dong & Senhua Chen & Yixue Wu, 2023. "Keeping up with the Joneses: The role of investee peers corporate environmental responsibility," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(4), pages 1841-1855, July.
    3. Fan, Yunqi & Fu, Hui, 2020. "Institutional investors, selling pressure and crash risk: Evidence from China," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(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. Edmans, Alex & Holderness, Clifford, 2016. "Blockholders: A Survey of Theory and Evidence," CEPR Discussion Papers 11442, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Alex Edmans, 2014. "Blockholders and Corporate Governance," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 23-50, December.
    3. Mário Santos & António Moreira & Elisabete Vieira, 2014. "Ownership concentration, contestability, family firms, and capital structure," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 18(4), pages 1063-1107, November.
    4. Srivastav, Abhishek & Keasey, Kevin & Mollah, Sabur & Vallascas, Francesco, 2017. "CEO turnover in large banks: Does tail risk matter?," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 37-55.
    5. Bajo, Emanuele & Croci, Ettore & Marinelli, Nicoletta, 2020. "Institutional investor networks and firm value," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 65-80.
    6. Hou, Canran & Liu, Huan, 2023. "Institutional cross-ownership and stock price crash risk," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    7. Helwege, Jean & Intintoli, Vincent J. & Zhang, Andrew, 2012. "Voting with their feet or activism? Institutional investors’ impact on CEO turnover," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 22-37.
    8. Axel R. Helling & Benjamin Maury & Eva Liljeblom, 2020. "Exit as governance: do blockholders affect corporate innovation in large US firms?," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 60(2), pages 1703-1725, June.
    9. Ravid, S. Abraham & Sekerci, Naciye, 2020. "Large investors’ portfolio composition and firms value," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    10. Alex Edmans & Gustavo Manso, 2011. "Governance Through Trading and Intervention: A Theory of Multiple Blockholders," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(7), pages 2395-2428.
    11. Sabri Boubaker & Riadh Manita & Wael Rouatbi, 2021. "Large shareholders, control contestability and firm productive efficiency," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 296(1), pages 591-614, January.
    12. Muñoz, Francisco, 2013. "Liquidity and firm investment: Evidence for Latin America," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 18-29.
    13. 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).
    14. Zhan Li, 2021. "The factor market spillover effects of shareholder activism," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 44(3), pages 671-689, September.
    15. Bouzgarrou, Houssam & Navatte, Patrick, 2013. "Ownership structure and acquirers performance: Family vs. non-family firms," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 123-134.
    16. Chen, Yangyang & Rhee, S. Ghon & Veeraraghavan, Madhu & Zolotoy, Leon, 2015. "Stock liquidity and managerial short-termism," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 44-59.
    17. Guangyong Lei & Wanwan Wang & Junli Yu & Kam C. Chan, 2022. "Cultural Diversity and Corporate Tax Avoidance: Evidence from Chinese Private Enterprises," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 176(2), pages 357-379, March.
    18. Giuli, Alberta Di & Karmaziene, Egle & Sekerci, Naciye, 2021. "Common ownership and firm dividend policies," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).
    19. Baghdadi, Ghasan A. & Nguyen, Lily H.G. & Podolski, Edward J., 2020. "Board co-option and default risk," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    20. Pierre Chaigneau, 2010. "The Optimal Timing of Executive Compensation," FMG Discussion Papers dp660, Financial Markets Group.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nbr:nberwo:20420. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.