【Topic】Determinants of Ownership Structures: Evidence from Product Market Competition

【Speaker】Jan Bena，Assistant Professor, University of British Columbia

【Time】 13:45—15:15, 2014-04-24，Thursday

【Venue】Room 401, Weilun Building, Tsinghua SEM.

【Language】English

【Organizer】Department of Finance

【Target Audience】Faculty Members and Graduate Students

【Background Information】

Jan Bena got his PhD from London School of Economics. His Research Interests are: Corporate finance and governance, finance and product market competition, access to external finance and financial constraints, financial development and efficiency, financial intermediation and capital market dysfunctionality.

Abstract;

We study determinants of corporate ownership structures. Building on theory work, we use product market competition as a shock to the costs and benefits of key ownership characteristics. Using a comprehensive sample of firms across 18 countries, we find that competition reduces firms’ inside ownership and increases the dispersion of stakes among outside shareholders. Shareholder-level analysis shows that competition accelerates the entry and exit of shareholders and speeds up the diffusion of stakes from inside shareholders to outside shareholders. Our results are consistent with the view that decisions about ownership are driven by firm value maximization. We conclude that fundamental economic forces, like the nature of product market structure, induce endogenous equilibrium relations between corporate ownership structures and outcomes.