شواهد بین المللی بر عملکرد و مالکیت سهام توسط خودی، دارندگان بلوک، و موسسات

This paper examines the effects of equity ownership by insiders and equity ownership by blockholders and institutions on performance using samples of firms from four countries (United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan). While there are no consistent relationships between insider ownership or blockholder/institutional ownership on performance across the four countries, there are nevertheless significant associations between ownership of these groups and performance within the four countries. Our results may indicate that the effects of insider ownership and/or blockholders/institutions depend very much on local laws or the local business environment. In contrast, the effects of the control factors on performance are much more consistent. Leverage, for example, tends to have a negative effect while capital expenditures and sales growth both generally have a positive effect.

Equity ownership by managers and monitoring by large blockholders and institutions are two ways that can potentially reduce agency problems and increase the value of the firm. Significant equity ownership by managers can align their interests with those of outside shareholders so that management has the incentive to pursue value-maximizing behavior. Also, the presence of large blockholders or institutions can increase/improve the degree of monitoring and thus lead to better firm performance. On the other hand, it is possible that too large an ownership stake by managers or blockholders/institutions could potentially lead these groups to worry more about their own interests and not those of outside shareholders. The empirical evidence about whether performance improves due to equity ownership by managers and equity ownership of large blockholders/institutions is unclear. This paper examines these relationships under different ownership and control systems. In particular, we examine the association between firm performance and equity ownership by insiders and the relationship between firm performance and equity ownership by blockholders and institutions using samples from four countries (United States, England, Germany, and Japan). All four countries are very important in the world and, for the most part, have available data that allows us to test our hypotheses. There is some debate on the extent of the differences in the governance systems of these four countries. The traditional view argues that governance systems are different between Anglo-American countries and those of Continental Europe and Japan. More recently, researchers have suggested that distinctions between countries should be based more on their legal systems (investor protection laws and their enforcement). In any case, our findings not only provide further evidence of these relationships for American firms, but also whether the relationships for American firms are valid for firms in other important governance regimes. Our paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we highlight some of the relevant prior research on equity ownership by insiders and blockholders. In Section 3, a description of the ownership and control systems applicable for the firms in the four countries is given. In Section 4, hypotheses are stated, the data are described, and our methodology is presented. In Section 5, we give our findings and finally, in Section 6, conclusions are offered.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of insiders, blockholders and institutions on performance. The relationships between performance and equity ownership of insiders, blockholders, and institutions are tested on samples of firms in the U.S., Germany, the U.K., and Japan. The definitions for insiders, blockholders, and institutions differ across the four countries, which makes it difficult to compare some of the results across the four countries. The results show no consistent pattern between equity ownership by insiders and performance across the four countries. This may suggest that the relationship between equity ownership and performance is weak, in general, a finding with which Demsetz and Lehn (1985) would concur. On the other hand, it may indicate that this relationship is very dependent on location. Specific local laws or governance practices may determine whether the relationship is positive or negative or insignificant. Ultimately more research is needed to explain our findings. The relationships between the control factors and performance are much more consistent. For example, leverage tends to have a negative effect while capital expenditures and sales growth both have a positive effect. The influence of blockholders and institutions on performance is once again not consistent across the four countries. This may again reflect the fact that their influence depends on their location or it may suggest that their impact is, in general, small.