Manuscript type: EmpiricalResearch Question/Issue: This paper analyses the influence of large shareholders on firm value using a sample of firms from 11 European countries, specifically considering how the existence of a controlling coalition in family-owned firms and the contestability of control of the largest shareholder affect the value of the family-owned firms. Research Findings/Insights: We find that increased contestability of the control of the largest shareholder increases the value of family-owned firms. Results also show that in firms in which the largest shareholder is a family, a second family shareholder reduces firm value. Conversely, an institutional investor as second shareholder increases firm value. Likewise, better legal protection of shareholders not members of the controlling coalition increases the value of family firms. Theoretical/Academic Implications: We explore an under-examined aspect of agency conflict -contestability between large, dominant shareholders and minority shareholders. We highlight the role of the second and third largest shareholders, in terms of share and type of shareholder. We suggest the need for new avenues of research focused on the dynamics of power within the firm. Finally, we identify a situation in which conflict of interest becomes prominent. Practitioner/Policy Implications: This study corroborates policymakers' concerns regarding the protection of rights of minority shareholders. We suggest the need for a stronger macro governance environment to facilitate minority shareholder participation in corporate decision making. Our study also lends support to balanced ownership structures with multiple large shareholders as a way to increase the firm's performance. Managers would also better serve shareholders' interests by not limiting their attention to the current controlling coalition.

We analyse the relation between capital structure, ownership structure, and corporate value for a sample of 1,216 firms from 15 European countries. Our results stress two different conflicts of interest and show the differential role played by the mechanisms of corporate control depending on the legal and institutional environment. In common law countries, as a consequence of the relationships between managers and shareholders, capital structure and managerial ownership are the most effective mechanisms of control. In civil law countries, however, as a consequence of the conflicts between majority and minority shareholders, the ownership concentration and the sharing of control within the firm become crucial. In this scenario, the second reference shareholder plays a critical role in contesting the control of the dominant largest shareholder in order to reduce the extraction of private benefits and improve the firm's performance. Copyright (c) 2007 The Authors; Journal compilation (c) 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

This article analyses the effect of institutional ownership in alleviating or exacerbating the conflicts of interests among stakeholders in different legal and institutional frameworks. This analysis is carried out based on two characteristics: the concentration of power of institutional ownership and the identification of the main types of institutional investors. In common law countries, consistent with the convergence and entrenchment hypotheses, we find a U-shape relation between ownership structure and firm performance. In civil law countries, consistent with the collusion and contest theories, we find an inverted U-shape relation. We also find that when institutional investors are classified as pressure resistant and pressure sensitive according to the strength of their ties with managers, pressureresistant investors, who operate more independently, are the most capable of improving the value of the firm.

This paper provides new international evidence on the relationship between dividend policy and insider ownership by analysing a sample of USA, UK and Irish firms characterized by an Anglo-Saxon tradition and a matching sample of other EU companies from Civil Law legal systems. We hypothesize that, due to the different characteristics of both the legal system and the nature of agency conflicts in firms from those countries, the relation between dividend policies and ownership by insiders will be considerably distinct between the two sets of companies. We find that while in firms with an Anglo-Saxon tradition the relation between dividends and insider ownership follows the pattern negative-positive-negative, in Civil Law countries the relation is positive-negative-positive. These results are consistent with our hypotheses and breed new insights into the role of the dividend policy as a disciplining mechanism in countries with different legal systems and distinct agency problems.dividend policy, corporate governance, insider ownership, international financial markets, dynamic panel data and GMM estimation,

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