Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
自由缔约环境下的股东赋权与所有权结构
Shareholder empowerment and ownership structure in a free-contracting environment
摘要
We study how firms choose to allocate control over strategic corporate decisions between shareholders and management in a historical setting where governance design was not mandated by corporate law, but ownership structures were constrained by differences in regional wealth distributions. The general shareholder meeting is the dominant governance body, retaining control over the largest number of strategic decisions. Nevertheless, firms with a predominance of small —and plausibly less informed— shareholders empower managers by delegating control over a larger number of strategic decisions to them. Furthermore, shareholder empowerment is accompanied by statutory provisions that facilitate information acquisition, suggesting that control and information are complements. Our findings highlight that the debate on shareholder empowerment should account for the role of ownership structure and information as key determinants of the allocation of control between shareholders and management.
中文摘要
我们研究在这样一个历史情境中，企业如何在股东与管理层之间分配对战略性公司决策的控制权：在该情境下，治理设计并未由公司法强制规定，但所有权结构受到区域财富分布差异的约束。股东大会是主导性的治理机构，保留了对最多战略性决策的控制权。然而，当小股东——且很可能是信息较不充分的股东——占主导时，企业会通过将更多战略性决策的控制权委托给管理层来赋予其权力。此外，股东赋权伴随着有助于信息获取的法定条款，这表明控制权与信息是互补的。我们的发现强调，关于股东赋权的讨论应考虑到所有权结构和信息的作用，它们是股东与管理层之间控制权分配的关键决定因素。