The Berle-Means thesis (1932 "The Modern Corporation and Private Property". New York: Harcourt, Brace and World) implies that diffuse ownership adversely affects firm performance. This paper tries to investigate whether there is strong evidence to support the notion that variations across firms in observed ownership structures result in systematic variations in observed firm performance. We test this hypothesis by assessing the impact of the structure of ownership on corporate performance, measured by profitability, using data for 175 Greek listed firms. Following Demsetz and Villalonga (2001 Ownership Structure and Corporate Performance, "Journal of Corporate Finance", 7, 209-233), we model ownership structure, first, as an endogenous variable and, second, we consider two different measures of ownership structure reflecting different groups of shareholders with conflicting interests. Empirical findings suggest that a more concentrated ownership structure positively relates to higher firm profitability. We also find that higher firm profitability requires a less diffused ownership. Copyright (c) 2007 The Authors; Journal compilation (c) 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

This paper enumerates the adventures of the drachma step by step, dividing its story into seven parts. Specifically, its main purpose is to present some historical perspective on the behaviour of the monetary and fiscal policies pursued in Greece during the period from the early 1830s until the introduction of the euro. For Greece, the lessons of historical experience are very important. Since the formation of the modern Greek state, government officials have striven – sometimes making hard efforts – to keep abreast of international monetary developments. This was because they understood that the participation of a peripheral, poor and inflation‐prone country with a weak currency and an underdeveloped money market, like Greece of the time, in a monetary club of powerful economies could improve her international credit standing and imply important benefits in terms of exchange rate and monetary stability, and long‐term foreign borrowing.

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Three models are used to test the widely held view that there is military rivalry between Greece and Turkey. The modelling is based on the work of McGuire (1977), Desai & Blake (1981) and a vector autoregression specification. Particular attention is paid to appropriate diagnostic tests, the long-run values and Granger causality. Empirical findings provide little corroboration of the view that there is an arms race between Greece and Turkey. Such results should not be entirely surprising. Rivalry can take many other forms, such as periodic exchanges of bellicose rhetoric; economic, political and diplomatic manoeuvering; lobbying within existing alliances; political, historical and cultural propaganda. Given that the statistical evidence provides little support for the view that there is an arms race between Greece and Turkey, there are possibly other explanations for their military expenditures. Therefore, on the empirical side, the most important issue for future research of the determinants of military expenditures in both countries would be the consideration of models that incorporate the impact of various strategic, political and economic factors which may be important determinants of defence spending.

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