Using the Japanese bank merger dataset for the 2000s, this paper investigates whether the reduction of the ownership ratio by the blockholder affects companies' operating performance and bank-firm relationships. In Japan, banks are prohibited from holding more than 5% of the business company's...

We show that passive ownership can reduce agency costs and affect corporate governance using novel data of a central bank’s ETF purchasing program as a source of a cross-sectional variation of passive ownership. The empirical findings document that firms with high passive ownership are more...

We identify factors affecting the Japanese stock market during the COVID-19 pandemic period. First, we focus on the ownership structure. We find that indirect ownership through the exchange-traded fund purchasing program by the Bank of Japan has a positive impact on abnormal returns. Foreign...