Investor Protection and Ownership Concentration:New Empirical Evidence from Control Right Transfer
利用中国A股市场控制权转移事件缓解内生性问题，重新检验投资者保护与股权集中度的关系，发现两者正相关，源于中国上市公司大股东与中小股东间的代理问题。
The relationship between investor protection and ownership concentration continues to generate substantial interest among theorists and practitioners.Though a series of studies have documented that investor protection is negatively correlated with ownership concentration,most of them suffer from endogeneity issue.Based on the events of control right transfer in China's A share market,which can help mitigate the endogeneity issue, this study re-examines the relationship and obtains opposite empirical result compared with prior studies.We argue that the result obtained here is not contradicted with previous studies.It is,however,determined by the particular institutional background of China.Specifically,the agency problem in Chinese listed firm is more likely to focus on the one between majority shareholders and minority shareholders,thus resulting a chance of positive correlation between investor protection and ownership concentration.The result,therefore,implies that strengthening investor protection and monitoring listed firm more effectively will enhance the level of corporate governance of listed firms and ensure future success in reform of privatization.