The effect of changes in ownership structure on performance: Evidence from the thrift industry1We thank George Aragon, Ben Branch, Benjamin Esty (the referee), Mark Flannery, Alvin Harrell, Clifford G. Holderness, Edith Hotchkiss, Michael Jensen, Edward J. Kane, Donald May, Marcia Millon Cornett, Manju Puri, G. William Schwert (the editor), Henri Servaes, Robert Taggert, Hassan Tehranian, Thomas Vartanian, William Wilhelm, Julie Williams, and seminar participants at Boston University, the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, DC, Suffolk University, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Columbia University for helpful discussion of this study. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the 1995 Annual Meetings of both the Western Finance Association and the Financial Management Association, and at the 1996 Annual Meeting of the American Finance Association.1