This article disentangles the incentive and entrenchment effects of large ownership. Using data for 1,301 publicly traded corporations in eight East Asian economies, we find that firm value increases with the cash-flow ownership of the largest shareholder, consistent with a positive incentive effect. But firm value falls when the control rights of the largest shareholder exceed its cash-flow ownership, consistent with an entrenchment effect. Given that concentrated corporate ownership is predominant in most countries, these findings have relevance for corporate governance across the world. THE EFFECTS OF OWNERSHIP STRUCTURES

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Abstract:We provide empirical evidence that campaign contributions are strongly associated with market expectations of future firm-specific political favors, including preferential access to external finance. Using a novel dataset, we find that Brazilian firms providing more contributions in the 1998 campaign to (elected) federal deputies experienced higher stock returns following the election, even after controlling for industry-specific effects and firm-specific characteristics. This suggests that federal deputies were expected to shape policy and actions to benefit particular firms. Consistent with such political favors, we find that these firms substantially increased their financial leverage relative to a control group in the four years following election, especially from banks, suggesting that contributions gained firms preferential access to finance. JEL Classifications: D7, G1, G2, G3, and P48.