Does big three ownership affect the strategic propensity to reinvest or distribute cash flow? Evidence from the UK and Sweden
研究了2005-2019年间，三大指数基金（先锋、贝莱德、道富）在英国和瑞典的持股如何影响企业将现金流用于再投资还是分配给股东，发现其导致分配倾向增加，且瑞典比英国更显著。
The recent rise of index-based investors has led to substantially more concentrated share ownership around the world. This paper studies the ascent of the “Big Three” – Vanguard, Blackrock, and State Street – as major shareholders in the UK and Sweden between 2005 and 2019. More specifically, we address the issue of how the rise of these investors affects the corporate strategic propensity to reinvest or distribute cash flow to shareholders and whether this influence is contingent on national differences in corporate governance. We document how the rise of the Big Three is associated with an increasing strategic propensity for distribution at the expense of reinvestment. This effect is significantly greater in Sweden, where corporate governance institutions have historically developed to support active ownership by controlling shareholders, than in the UK, where corporate governance institutions have developed to support a more market-based model. Both the link between increasing strategic propensity for distribution associated with the Big Three and the effect of the institutional context in which the Big Three operate contribute to ongoing discussions on the extent and nature of the influence of passive index funds on firms’ strategies and on the role that corporate governance institutions play as boundary conditions for shareholder influence.