Corporate control mechanisms, voting and cash flow rights, and the performance of Dutch firms

This paper exploits several unique institutional features in the Dutch system of corporate control to examine the relations among investor protections, concentrated ownership, and firm performance. Four conclusions emerge. First, controlling shareholders do not appear to ameliorate corporate governance problems to any great extent. Second, the identity of ownership matters; when a firm is controlled by a few large individual shareholders, firm performance suffers. Expropriation costs are very high for this type of investor. Third, and somewhat at odds with the bulk of the prevailing literature... Mehr ...