| dc.description.abstract | The distribution of formal control rights among the firm’s stakeholders (such as
stockholders, creditors, employees, politicians, and customers) attracts considerable
public attention in many countries. For instance, a common view in the UK and the
US is that firms should have profit maximization as their only objective, and that
stockholders should be the dominant stakeholder in corporate governance. In contrast,
conventional wisdom in Continental Europe and Japan is that firms should have
multiple objectives and allocate formal power to more stakeholder types than just
stockholders. The politics of corporate governance addresses this issue by regulating
the owners’ ability to control the corporation.
This report addresses this issue empirically by trying to answer two questions. First,
what relationship do we actually observe between stakeholder structure and corporate
behavior? For instance, do firms take less risk when stockholders share control rights
with employees, customers, and politicians? Second, what is the real-world link
between stakeholder structure and economic performance? For instance, do ownerless
firms have lower returns to capital invested than firms owned by stockholders? | en_US |
