Common Ownership in America: 1980-2017

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Backus, Matthew; Conlon, Christopher; Sinkinson, Michael
• 署名单位: Columbia University; National Bureau of Economic Research; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK; New York University; Yale University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MICROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7669
• DOI: 10.1257/mic.20190389
• 发表日期: 2021
• 页码: 273-308
• 关键词: corporate-ownership; market power

摘要

We empirically assess the implications of the common ownership hypothesis from a historical perspective using the set of S&P 500 firms from 1980 to 2017. We show that the dramatic rise in common ownership in the time series is driven primarily by the rise of indexing and diversification and, in the cross section, by investor concentration, which the theory presumes to drive a wedge between cash flow rights and control. We also show that the theory predicts incentives for expropriation of undiversified shareholders via tunneling, even in the Berle and Means (1932) world of the widely held firm.