This paper provides a theoretical model for explaining the separation of ownership and control in firms. An entrepreneur hires a worker for providing eff ort to complete a project. The worker's eff ort determines the probability that the project is completed on time, but the worker receives...

We find a significant hump-shaped relation between firm valuation and CEO ownership when external governance (EG) is weak, but the relation is insignificant when EG is strong. These interactive effects are identified while controlling for firm-fixed effects. The results imply that CEO ownership...

We find a highly significant hump shaped relation between Tobin's Q and CEO share ownership for firms under weak external governance (EG), but find no relation for firms under strong EG. These relations illustrate the substitution effect of EG and CEO ownership in mitigating agency problems at...

This paper provides a theoretical model for explaining the separation of ownership and control in firms. An entrepreneur hires a worker, whose effort is necessary for running a project. The worker's effort determines the probability that the project will be completed on time, but the worker...

This paper considers the role of equity transfer to strategic alliance partners in mitigating the moral hazard problem that occurs if a participating firm faces some possibility of reallocating a part of the resources devoted to the joint project of the strategic alliance or retreating from the...

We examine the incentive effects of private equity (PE) professionals' ownership in the funds they manage. In a simple model, we show that managers select less risky firms and use more debt financing the higher their ownership. We test these predictions for a sample of PE funds in Norway, where...

Causal evidence on the effect of managerial ownership on firm performance is elusive due to a lack of within-firm variation and credible empirical designs. We identify this causal effect by exploiting the 2003 Tax Cut as a natural experiment, which increased net-of-tax effective managerial...

We consider a model of CEO selection, dismissal and retention. Firms with larger blockholder ownership monitor more; they get more information about CEO ability, which facilitates the dismissal of low-ability CEOs. These firms are matched with CEOs whose ability is more uncertain. For retention...

The subprime crisis highlights how little we know about the governance of banks. This paper addresses a long-standing gap in the literature by analyzing board governance using a sample of banking firm data that spans forty years. We examine the relationship between board structure (size and...

In this letter we address the terms of reference of the Australian Parliament's Standing Committee on Economics and also make some additional comments. Our key points are as follows: The default model is not that firms will compete. Only if firms have the right incentives they will compete, and...