TY  - JOUR
AU  - Porta,Rafael La
AU  - Lopez-de-Silane,Florencio
AU  - Shleifer,Andrei
TI  - Corporate Ownership Around the World
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 6625
PY  - 1998
Y2  - June 1998
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6625
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6625.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Rafael La Porta
Dartmouth College
Tuck School
210 Tuck Hall
Hanover, NH  03755
Tel: 603/646-3739
E-Mail: rafael.laporta@dartmouth.edu

Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes
EDHEC Business School
393, Promenade des Anglais BP 3116
06202 Nice Cedex 3
France
Tel: +33 (0) 4 93 18 78 07
Fax: +33 (0) 4 93 18 78 41
E-Mail: Florencio.lopezdesilanes@edhec.edu

Andrei Shleifer
Department of Economics
Harvard University
Littauer Center M-9
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/495-5046
Fax: 617/496-1708
E-Mail: ashleifer@harvard.edu
AB  - We present data on ownership structures of large corporations in 27 wealthy economies, making an effort to identify ultimate controlling shareholders of these firms.  We find that, except in economies with very good shareholder protection, relatively few of these firms are widely-held, in contrast to the Berle and Means image of ownership of the modern corporation.  Rather, these firms are typically controlled by families or the State. Equity control by financial institutions or other widely-held corporations is less common.  The controlling shareholders typically have the power over firms significantly in excess of their cash flow rights, primarily through the use of pyramids and participation in management.  The results suggest that the principal agency problem in large corporations around the world is that of restricting expropriation of minority shareholders by the controlling shareholders, rather than that of restricting empire building by professional managers unaccountable to shareholders.
ER  -