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Do Voting Rights Affect Institutional Investment Decisions? Evidence from Dual-Class Firms * Kai Li Sauder School of Business University of British Columbia 2053 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2 604.822.8353 [email protected] Hernan Ortiz-Molina Sauder School of Business University of British Columbia 2053 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2 604.822.6095 [email protected] Xinlei Zhao Department of Finance Kent State University Kent, OH 44242 330.672.1213 [email protected] This version: November, 2007 Keywords: corporate governance, dual-class firms, institutional investors, ownership structure, unification, voting rights JEL Classification: G11; G32 * We thank Andrew Metrick and Joy Ishii for sharing their dual-class dataset. We thank the Editor, an anonymous referee, Xia Chen, Qiang Cheng, Marcin Kacperczyk, Michael King, Karthik Krishnanm, and participants at the Northern Finance Association (NFA) Meetings 2007 for comments and helpful suggestions. Priscille Aeschlimann, Huasheng Gao, Dermot Murphy, Dave Newton, and Bing Yu provided excellent research assistance. At the NFA Meetings in 2007, this paper was the Winner of the Best Paper Award in valuation sponsored by the Canadian Institute of Chartered Business Valuators. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Bureau of Asset Management of the Sauder School of Business, and the Certified Management Accounting Society of British Columbia. All errors are ours.

Do Voting Rights Affect Institutional Investment …...institutional investors invest more in U.S. firms with good board characteristics, but are largely indifferent to the Gompers,

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Page 1: Do Voting Rights Affect Institutional Investment …...institutional investors invest more in U.S. firms with good board characteristics, but are largely indifferent to the Gompers,

Do Voting Rights Affect Institutional Investment Decisions? Evidence from Dual-Class Firms*

Kai Li Sauder School of Business

University of British Columbia 2053 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2

604.822.8353 [email protected]

Hernan Ortiz-Molina

Sauder School of Business University of British Columbia

2053 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2 604.822.6095

[email protected]

Xinlei Zhao Department of Finance Kent State University

Kent, OH 44242 330.672.1213

[email protected]

This version: November, 2007

Keywords: corporate governance, dual-class firms, institutional investors, ownership structure, unification, voting rights JEL Classification: G11; G32 * We thank Andrew Metrick and Joy Ishii for sharing their dual-class dataset. We thank the Editor, an anonymous referee, Xia Chen, Qiang Cheng, Marcin Kacperczyk, Michael King, Karthik Krishnanm, and participants at the Northern Finance Association (NFA) Meetings 2007 for comments and helpful suggestions. Priscille Aeschlimann, Huasheng Gao, Dermot Murphy, Dave Newton, and Bing Yu provided excellent research assistance. At the NFA Meetings in 2007, this paper was the Winner of the Best Paper Award in valuation sponsored by the Canadian Institute of Chartered Business Valuators. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Bureau of Asset Management of the Sauder School of Business, and the Certified Management Accounting Society of British Columbia. All errors are ours.

Page 2: Do Voting Rights Affect Institutional Investment …...institutional investors invest more in U.S. firms with good board characteristics, but are largely indifferent to the Gompers,

Do Voting Rights Affect Institutional Investment Decisions? Evidence from Dual-Class Firms

Abstract We examine whether, and to what extent, shareholder voting rights affect institutional investment decisions. Our analysis compares institutional investment in dual-class firms, where multiple share classes carrying differential voting rights allow insiders to control the firm and leave outside investors with little or no control rights, to that in single-class firms, where each share carries one vote. We find that institutional ownership in dual-class firms is significantly lower than it is in single-class firms after controlling for other determinants of institutional investment. Although institutions of all types hold less of the shares of dual-class firms, this avoidance is more pronounced for long-term investors with strong fiduciary responsibilities than for short-term investors with weak fiduciary duties. Following the unification of dual-class shares into a single-class, institutional investors increase their shareholdings in the unifying firm. Overall, our results suggest that voting rights are an important determinant of institutional investment decisions. Keywords: corporate governance, dual-class firms, institutional investors, ownership structure, unification, voting rights JEL Classification: G11; G32

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“A dual class stock structure, which carries unequal voting rights, is antithetical to the fair and fundamental principle of a ‘one-share, one-vote’ system and has no place in today’s marketplace. Control of a corporation should come from owning a majority of shares, not owning special shares with special rights.”

William D. Crist (former President of CalPERS Board of Administration)

What determines the variation in institutional ownership across firms has received

a great deal of attention in empirical research in financial economics. While previous

work has shown that institutional investment is related to certain firm and stock

characteristics, it is only recently that researchers have started to explore how corporate

governance mechanisms affect institutional investment. Given that institutions are the

largest class of investors in U.S. stock market, understanding whether and how firms’

corporate governance attributes affect their investment decisions is of great importance

for the design of corporate governance.

In this paper, we empirically study institutional investor preferences for the stock

of firms with an extreme form of governance⎯dual-class shares⎯where different share

classes carry differential voting rights.1 Since insiders of dual-class firms hold the

majority of the shares with superior voting power, they are able to control the firm

without holding large equity stakes and are largely isolated from external control

pressures such as takeover threats. In general, outside investors can only purchase the

shares with inferior voting rights. Gompers, Ishii, and Metrick (2007) document that in

more than 70% of the dual-class firms the shares with superior voting power are not

traded. In cases where super-voting shares are traded, these shares are largely held by

1 Dual-class firms constitute about 6% of all firms and 8% of the total market capitalization in the U.S. (Gompers, Ishii, and Metrick (2007)). There is also an increasing trend in dual-class IPOs, which account for 9% of all IPOs in 2005 as opposed to 4.5% in 1995 based on data from SDC.

1

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insiders. As a result, in dual-class firms outside investors have limited control rights even

when their fractional ownership may give them substantial cash-flow rights.2 In stark

contrast, in single-class firms each share carries one vote and thus outside investors’

cash-flow and control rights are identical.

Although important institutional investors often publicly voice their concerns

about dual-class structures (see the quote above), a priori it is unclear whether

institutional investment decisions should be affected by the lack of voting rights

associated with outside equity positions in dual-class firms. On the one hand, dual-class

share structures may not significantly affect institutional investment if institutions simply

chase past returns, especially given that prior studies show no significant difference in

performance between dual- and single-class firms. Moreover, the U.S. possesses the best

practice in security laws and corporate governance mechanisms and it is unlikely that

outside shareholders of dual-class firms can be expropriated. On the other hand,

institutions may hold less of the shares of dual-class firms due to the constraints arising

from their prudence standards, the career concerns of portfolio managers, or their reduced

ability to intervene. Hence, our analysis of institutional investment in dual-class firms

sheds light on whether voting rights, which are arguably the most important type of

shareholder rights (La Porta et al. (1997), and Gompers, Ishii, and Metrick (2007)),

influence institutional investment decisions.

For both single-class and dual-class firms, we define institutional ownership as

institutional investors’ dollar investment in the firm’s equity as a percentage of the firm’s

total market value of equity. We first explore whether institutional investment differs

2 Gompers, Ishii, and Metrick (2007) document that outside investors in dual-class firms hold about 60% of the cash-flow rights but only 40% of the voting rights.

2

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across single-class and dual-class firms. These cross-sectional tests show that aggregate

institutional ownership in dual-class firms is about 3.6 percentage points lower than it is

in single-class firms, after controlling for a host of factors that affect institutional

investment in stocks. Although institutions of all types have lower ownership in dual-

class firms than in single-class firms, the magnitude of the effect of a firm’s dual-class

status on institutional holdings varies across types. The effect is stronger for the group of

long-term investors with important fiduciary responsibilities that are usually the most

active in corporate governance, and it is weaker for short-term investors with low

fiduciary responsibilities that are less likely to engage in shareholder activism.

We then use the time-series variation in firms’ dual-class status to examine how

the unification of dual-class structures into a single-class affects institutional investment.

Our analysis shows that, relative to a control group of dual-class firms that do not unify

their share classes, dual-class firms that unify their share classes experience a significant

subsequent increase in institutional ownership. Moreover, after the unification takes place

all types of institutional investors increase their equity holdings in the unifying firms.

We also conduct a battery of additional tests to explore the robustness of our

results. The analysis shows that our findings are unlikely to be driven by reverse

causality. They are also robust to the use of various alternative measures of institutional

ownership and alternative econometric specifications. Lastly, our main results are

unaffected when we further control for insider ownership, board characteristics, and

institutional herding.

Our paper contributes to the literature in the following ways. First, previous work

finds that U.S. institutional investment is related to stock and firm characteristics as well

3

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as the quality of governance practices (for example, Del Guercio (1996), Gompers and

Metrick (2001), and Bushee, Carter, and Gerakos (2007)). We add to this literature by

showing that U.S. institutions invest substantially less in domestic firms with dual-class

structures, where outside shareholders have little or no voting rights, even when the

country-level investor protection and security laws are well developed.

Second, there is mixed evidence on whether dual-class arrangements hurt or

increase firm value (see, for example, Mikkelson and Partch (1994), and Dimitrov and

Jain (2006)). We add to this literature by showing that dual-class arrangements are

associated with a diminished presence of institutional investors. Since institutions are the

largest participant in the stock market, our findings suggest that the lack of shareholder

voting rights may compromise dual-class firms’ access to equity financing.

The paper is organized as follows. In Section I we review the related literature,

discuss the conceptual framework, and outline our empirical tests. In Section II we

describe our sample formation and define variables. In Section III we examine whether

dual-class structures affect institutional ownership. In Section IV we conduct several

additional tests to explore the robustness of our findings. Section V concludes.

I. Literature Review, Conceptual Framework, and Outline of Tests

A. Related Literature

A.1. Determinants of institutional ownership

Our paper fits within the growing literature that relates U.S. institutional

investment in domestic companies to stock and firm characteristics, such as Del Guercio

(1996), Badrinath, Kale, and Ryan (1996), Falkenstein (1996), Gompers and Metrick

(2001), Coval and Moskowitz (1999, 2001), Bennett, Sias, and Starks (2003), and

4

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Grinstein and Michaely (2005), among others. It is most closely related to a couple of

recent studies that examine the relation between institutional investment and corporate

governance. Bushee and Noe (2000) find that firms with higher disclosure ratings have

greater institutional ownership. Bushee, Carter, and Gerakos (2007) show that

institutional investors invest more in U.S. firms with good board characteristics, but are

largely indifferent to the Gompers, Ishii, and Metrick’s (2003) Governance-index.

Our study is also related to the literature on how corporate governance affects the

“home bias” in U.S. investors’ portfolio decisions. For example, Dahlquist et al. (2003),

Leuz, Lins, and Warnock (2005), and Kho, Stulz, and Warnock (2006) show that U.S.

investors’ portfolios under-weigh the stocks of foreign companies that are poorly

governed. In addition, Aggarwal, Klapper, and Wysocki (2005) find that U.S. mutual

funds invest more in emerging markets with stronger country-level shareholder rights,

legal frameworks, and accounting standards, as well as in those firms with better

accounting disclosure.

More broadly, our work is also related to international and cross-country studies

of the relation between institutional investment and governance attributes. In their study

of Swedish firms, Giannetti and Simonov (2006) conclude that the majority of investors,

including institutional investors, are reluctant to invest in companies with weak corporate

governance. In a cross-country study, Giannetti and Koskinen (2007) show that

institutional investors based in countries with poorer investor protection invest more

abroad, and put greater portfolio weights on countries with better investor protection.

5

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A.2. Dual-class firms

Our study is also closely related to the literature on dual-class firms. Much of the

literature examines whether dual-class arrangements hurt shareholder value, and the

evidence is far from conclusive. Some authors argue that dual-class structures protect

private control benefits (Smart and Zutter (2003)), and that the separation of ownership

and control leads to value losses (Mikkelson and Partch (1994), and Claessens et al.

(2002)). Others including Fama and Jensen (1983) and DeAngelo and DeAngelo (1985)

contend that dual-class firms are not necessarily poorly-managed because of the strong

family involvement in these firms. Partch (1987), Cornett and Vetsuypens (1989), Lehn,

Netter, and Poulsen (1990), Denis and Denis (1994), and Dimitrov and Jain (2006)

provide evidence that dual-class structures do not destroy shareholder wealth. King and

Segal (2007) show that Canadian firms with dual-class shares can increase their valuation

by bonding themselves to the U.S. securities regime through cross-listing. More recently,

Gompers, Ishii, and Metrick (2007) explore the determinants of dual-class status and the

performance consequences of differential voting and cash-flow rights. They conclude that

firm value is increasing in insiders’ cash-flow rights and decreasing in insiders’ voting

rights.

B. The Conceptual Framework

A priori, it is unclear whether the lack of voting rights to shareholders in dual-

class firms should affect institutional investment decisions. On the one hand, there are

several reasons suggesting that dual-class share structures may not significantly affect

institutional investment. First, previous research has shown that institutional investment

decisions are mainly driven by past stock returns (Badrinath and Wahal (2002), and

6

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Nofsinger and Sias (1999)), and the empirical evidence on performance differences

between dual- and single-class firms is largely inconclusive (Partch (1987), Cornett and

Vetsuypens (1989), Lehn, Netter, and Poulsen (1990), Denis and Denis (1994), Böhmer,

Sanger, and Varshney (1996), and Dimitrov and Jain (2006)).

Second, the U.S. possesses the most stringent security laws to protect shareholder

rights and sets the highest standard on corporate governance practices (La Porta et al.

(1997), and Giannetti and Koskinen (2007)). There is no evidence that minority or

outside shareholders are expropriated in the U.S.

Third, although some important institutional investors publicly voice their

concerns about dual-class structures, the extent to which such voting arrangements may

affect their investment decisions is not obvious. For example, institutions cannot avoid

stocks that are part of major market indices, and some stocks may be important for

portfolio diversification.

Thus, the above discussion suggests that institutional ownership in dual-class

firms might not significantly differ from that in single-class firms.

On the other hand, there are arguments for why institutional managers may not

want to invest in the stock of dual-class companies, and thus exhibit a stronger preference

for the stock of single-class firms than do individual investors. First, unlike individual

investors, institutional managers are subject to “prudence” standards that constrain their

investment decisions (Del Guercio (1996)). To the extent that courts enforcing “prudent

man” laws may perceive investment in dual-class firms to entail a low level of prudence,

institutions may avoid these stocks to minimize their exposure to legal liabilities.

7

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Second, given the negative view of dual-class structures shared by many

important institutional investors,3 portfolio managers may avoid investing in the stock of

dual-class firms due to career concerns. This is because in periods of lack-luster

performance, it is difficult for a portfolio manager to demonstrate the soundness of her

judgment to invest in dual-class firms. Thus, a manager of a poorly performing portfolio

with a larger weight on the stock of dual-class companies may be more likely to be

dismissed than a manager whose portfolio places little weight on dual-class firms (see

Badrinath, Gay, and Kale (1989) for a discussion of this issue). In contrast, individual

investors’ human capital is independent of the performance of their investment portfolios.

Third, institutions may prefer the stock of single-class firms over that of dual-

class firms because they can use the voting power conveyed by their large stakes to

influence corporate decisions,4 especially when institutional selling of poorly performing

stocks could be costly due to the potentially large impact on stock prices. In contrast,

because of the high costs of direct action associated with their small stakes, individual

investors in general are not actively involved in corporate governance and thus may place

little value on voting rights.

The above reasoning suggests that institutions might choose to hold less of the

stock of dual-class firms, which in turn implies that individual investors would choose to

hold more of the shares of those firms.5

3 Influential institutional investors, such as CalPERS and TIAA-CREF, as well as governance rating and proxy voting services, all publicly denounce the dual-class structure. 4 See the evidence in Smith (1996), Carleton, Nelson, and Weisbach (1998), and Karpoff (1998). 5 This would occur even when both individual and institutional investors may have some preference for the stock of single-class firms over that of dual-class firms. This is because the share price of a dual-class firm will not fully discount the lack of voting rights to outside shareholders, precisely because the equilibrium stock price reflects the demand of institutional and individual investors with heterogeneous valuations of the stock of dual-class firms. Thus, at the equilibrium stock price, institutional investors with a lower valuation will hold less of the shares of dual-class firms than individual investors with a higher valuation.

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Given the conflicting views discussed above, whether institutional investors care

about voting rights and thus avoid the stock of companies with dual-class share

structures, and to what extent, remain open empirical questions.

C. Outline of Our Tests

Our first set of tests exploits the cross-sectional variation in firms’ dual-class

status. Using a sample of dual-class firms and the universe of single-class firms as the

control group, we explore whether aggregate ownership by institutions differs across

single-class and dual-class firms. We also examine whether the relation between firms’

dual-class status and institutional ownership differs by type of institution.

Our second set of tests takes advantage of the time-series variation in firms’ dual-

class status to examine how the unification of dual-classes into a single-class affects

institutional ownership. We examine how institutional ownership changes after dual-class

firms unify their multiple share classes into a single-class, relative to a control group of

dual-class firms that maintain their multiple share class structure.

II. Our Sample and Variable Definition

To form our sample, we start with the merged CRSP-Compustat universe for the

period 1995-2002. We focus on this period because we can accurately identify the dual-

class firms each year using the data collected and generously made available to us by

Gompers, Ishii, and Metrick (2007). These data, which we download from Andrew

Metrick’s website, is the most comprehensive U.S. dual-class dataset available. To our

initial sample we then merge institutional investors’ holdings data from the Thomson

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Financial’s CDA/Spectrum Database,6 stock market data from CRSP, accounting data

from Compustat, and analyst coverage data from IBES. Our final sample consists of 614

dual-class firms (2,694 firm-year observations) and 8,360 single-class firms (37,503 firm-

year observations) for the period 1995-2002.7

Our key variable of interest is institutional ownership in dual-class and single-

class firms. In single-class firms there is no difference between cash-flow and voting

rights. Hence, institutional ownership can be measured as the fraction of shares

outstanding held by institutions or equivalently as the ratio of dollar value of institutional

investment to firm equity value. In dual-class firms, however, each share class carries

differential cash-flow and voting rights and thus institutional ownership of cash-flow

rights and of voting rights are different. We are interested in studying whether the level of

institutional investment differs across single-class and dual-class firms, thus the proper

measure of institutional investment for dual-class firms is the dollar value of institutional

investment in the firm as a percentage of firm equity value.

For both dual-class and single-class firms, we define institutional ownership (IO)

as the fraction of a firm’s equity value held by institutions measured in percentages. More

precisely, institutional ownership in firm i with n different share classes outstanding

(indexed by j) is constructed as follows:

(1) , 11∑∑==

=n

jjiji

n

jjijii soPsPIO

6 Under rule 13(f) of the 1978 amendment to the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, all institutions with greater than $100 million of equity securities under discretionary management are required to report their holdings quarterly. Common-stock positions greater than 10,000 shares or $200,000 must be disclosed. 7 While dual-class structures tend to concentrate in some industries, such as alcoholic beverages, printing and publishing, and telecommunications, they are not necessarily an industry-specific phenomenon. In fact, dual-class firms are present in 41 of the 48 Fama-French industries.

10

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where sji is the number of class j shares held by institutional investors in firm i, soji is the

total number of class j shares outstanding in firm i, and Pji is the class j share price of

firm i. Note that institutional ownership in single-class firms is simply the fraction of

shares outstanding held by institutions (n = 1). For dual-class firms with all classes of

shares traded, we obtain the share price Pji from CRSP. For dual-class firms with non-

traded superior-voting classes, we follow Gompers, Ishii, and Metrick (2007) and assume

that the non-traded superior-voting shares have the same price as the traded inferior-

voting shares (i.e., a zero voting premium).

Panel A of Table I reports the mean and median institutional shareholdings (IO)

across dual-class firms and the universe of single-class firms, for both the aggregate of

institutional investors and by type of institution. The five types of institutions based on

CDA/Spectrum’s classification are: bank trust departments, insurance companies,

investment companies, independent investment advisors, and others. The institutions in

this last group are a mix of ESOPs, university endowments, foundations, and private and

public pension funds.

Insert Table I here

The table shows that total institutional ownership is slightly higher in dual-class

firms than in single-class firms, both at the mean and median, and the differences are

statistically significant. The same pattern holds for the median holdings of all five types

of institutions. The mean institutional ownership in dual-class firms is higher for bank

trust departments, insurance companies, investment companies, and independent

investment advisors, but lower for the group of other institutional investors. However,

univariate statistics may mask the true relation between firms’ dual-class status and

institutional investment, especially if there are large differences in industry representation

11

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as well as in firm and stock characteristics across the two groups that are not controlled

for.

In Panel B we further compare institutional ownership in our sample of dual-class

firms to that in a sample of single-class firms matched by industry and firm size. By

matching each dual-class firm to a single-class firm of similar size in the same Fama-

French industry, we remove some of the important differences in single- and dual-class

firms that affect institutional investment. This approach unveils that the mean (median)

aggregate institutional ownership in dual-class firms is about 3.24 (3.12) percentage

points lower than that in similar single-class firms of the same industry. This difference is

statistically significant at the 1% level. Further, institutions of every type hold less of the

shares in dual-class firms than they do in similar single-class firms, except for insurance

companies where the median holdings are slightly higher for dual-class firms. Thus, the

evidence in Panel B suggests that after controlling for industry membership and firm size,

institutional ownership in dual-class firms is lower than in single-class firms.

In our multivariate analysis, we use institutional ownership (IO) as the dependent

variable. Our key test variable is a firm’s dual-class status, the Dual dummy, which

equals one if the firm has multiple share classes, and zero otherwise. Our control

variables comprise firm and stock characteristics that previous research has shown to

determine institutional investment. Market capitalization, Mktcap, is defined as the dollar

value of all share classes at the end of the year, in millions of 2002 dollars. The annual

return on the firm’s stock, Return, is defined as the value-weighted average of the returns

across traded classes over the year. The dividend yield, Divyield, is defined as the ratio of

total dividend payout to stock price. The volatility of stock returns, Retvol, is defined as

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the value-weighted average of the stock return volatility across traded classes using

monthly stock returns over the prior year. The share turnover ratio, Turnover, is defined

as the value-weighted average of the ratio of the trading volume to the number of shares

outstanding at the end of the previous year across all traded classes. The market-to-book

ratio, M/B, is defined as the market value of assets divided by book value of assets.

Financial leverage, Leverage, is computed as the ratio of total debt to the market value of

assets. Firm age, Firmage, is defined as the number of years since the firm first appears

in CRSP. Share price, Price, is defined as the value-weighted average of the stock price

across traded classes at the end of the year, in 2002 dollars. S&P 500 membership,

S&P500, is a dummy equal to one if the firm is in the S&P 500 Index, and zero

otherwise. Analyst coverage, #Analysts, is defined as the number of analysts covering the

firm according to IBES. Firm age, S&P 500 membership, and analyst coverage are

proxies for aggregate information and/or the cost of information collection.8 Share price

and turnover capture transaction costs. Table II presents summary statistics for these

variables.

Insert Table II here

It is clear that firm and stock characteristics differ substantially between dual-

class and single-class firms, except for stock returns. The median market capitalization of

dual-class firms is significantly larger than that of single-class firms, while the average

market capitalization of single-class firms is significantly larger than that of dual-class

firms. The average dividend yield of dual-class firms is larger than that of single-class

firms. Dual-class firms appear to have significantly lower return volatility, lower

8 For example, older stocks have a more established reputation and thus less estimation uncertainty of the riskiness of the stock. S&P 500 membership adds visibility to the stock. Greater analyst following serves as a proxy for the recent amount of useful information on the firm.

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turnover, lower market-to-book ratios, higher leverage, higher share price, lower

likelihoods of being part of the S&P 500 Index, and lower analyst coverage. Thus, results

in Table II suggest that, in addition to controlling for industry membership and firm size,

it is important that we control for an extensive list of potential determinants of

institutional investment in our multivariate analysis.

III. Institutional Investment in Dual-Class Firms

Before proceeding with our multivariate analysis, we examine the correlation

between our right-hand-side variables. Table III shows that the extent of correlation

among most pairs of variables raises little concern for multicollinearity in our regression

analysis. There are, however, a few moderate correlations in the order of 0.30-0.40 (for

example, between dividend yield and firm age) with a maximum of 0.52 between analyst

coverage and the S&P 500 membership dummy. Nevertheless, we note that the results

from our multivariate analysis are robust to different specifications that exclude some of

the right-hand-side variables in each of the moderately correlated pairs.

Insert Table III here

Throughout our regression analysis, we control for industry effects using 48

Fama-French industry dummies. This approach ensures that what identifies our estimated

coefficients is the cross-sectional variation in dual-class status within firms in the same

industry, thus removing any time-invariant industry-specific characteristics that could

drive the results. In addition, we include year dummies to control for changing market

conditions or trends that may affect institutional investment over time. To assess the

statistical significance of our results, throughout the analysis we use Rogers’ (1993)

robust standard errors that adjust for the clustering of observations at the firm level by

assuming that observations are independent across firms but not within firms.

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Although we consider the pooled OLS regressions with clustered standard errors

to be the most appropriate in our context, for robustness we also report the results of

Fama-MacBeth regressions with Newey-West standard errors. We caution, however, that

this method may be less reliable given the few years of observations in our sample

period.

A. Aggregate Institutional Investment in Dual- Versus Single-Class Firms

To explore whether voting rights are an important consideration in institutional

investment decisions, we regress institutional ownership (IO) on the dual-class status

dummy (Dual), and the set of firm and stock characteristics defined above. The

coefficient on Dual captures the difference in institutional holdings of dual- versus

single-class firms, after controlling for other differences across these two types of firms.

If voting rights have no effect on institutional investment decisions, we expect the

coefficient on Dual to be insignificantly different from zero. We expect the coefficient to

be negative if the lack of voting rights discourages institutional investment. Table IV

reports the results.

Insert Table IV here

In Panel A, we estimate pooled OLS regressions with clustered standard errors.

Across all four specifications, we find a negative and statistically significant coefficient

on the Dual dummy. The magnitude of the effect is not only statistically significant, but

also economically important. The estimates in column (4), where all control variables are

included, imply that aggregate institutional ownership in dual-class firms is 3.6

percentage points lower than it is in single-class firms. Given that the average fractional

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holding of institutional investors across all firms in the sample is about 33 percentage

points over our sample period, this difference is economically significant: institutional

ownership is 11% lower in dual-class firms than in single-class firms. Thus, we find

evidence that institutional investors tend to invest less in dual-class firms. In terms of the

control variables, most of our findings conform to those in prior studies: institutions

invest more in larger firms, older firms, firms with lower prior year returns, lower

dividend-yields, lower return volatility, higher turnover, lower market-to-book ratios,

higher leverage, higher stock prices, and greater analyst coverage.

Panel B reports the results from Fama-Macbeth regressions with Newey-West

standard errors based on five lags. All regressions include the same control variables as in

Panel A. We omit reporting coefficients on the control variables for brevity. We note that

the results on the effect of dual-class status on institutional investment are similar to those

under the pooled OLS specifications.

Roughly one-third of the dual-class firms in our sample have multiple traded

classes. When shares with inferior voting power as well as those with superior voting

power are traded, institutional investors can in principle purchase some of the superior-

voting shares. However, this is uncommon since the firm’s insiders usually hold the

superior-voting shares even when they are traded (Gompers, Ishii, and Metrick (2007)).

Nonetheless, it is possible that institutional investors may seek to purchase such shares to

obtain a voice in corporate matters. As a result, dual-class firms with both classes traded

may be relatively more attractive to institutional investors than those where only the

ordinary shares with little or no voting power are traded. To explore this possibility, we

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repeat our analysis of the effect of dual-class status on institutional ownership by

excluding dual-class firms where both classes are traded. Panel C reports the results.

We find that the negative effect of dual-class status on institutional ownership is

stronger in this sub-sample: institutional ownership in dual-class firms with non-traded

superior-voting shares is about 4.7 percentage points lower than in single-class firms

(column (4)). Thus, the evidence is consistent with the view that institutional investors

choose to hold even less of the shares of dual-class firms when the superior-voting shares

are not traded as they find it impossible to exert any influence on firms’ decisions.

Since ownership by institutions and ownership by individuals must add up to

100%, an equally valid interpretation of our results is that the aggregate ownership by

individual investors is higher in dual-class firms than in single-class firms. Thus, any

potential explanation of our results must not only explain why the stock of dual-class

firms is less attractive to institutional investors, but also why these securities are

relatively less attractive to institutional investors than to individual investors. As

discussed in Section I.B, institutional managers may place a lower value on the stock of

dual-class firms than do individual investors due to their fiduciary duties, career

concerns, and their ability to intervene. Thus, individual investors are willing to hold a

larger fraction of a dual-class firm’s equity while institutional investors are willing to

hold a smaller fraction.

To summarize, the collective evidence from Table IV suggests that the aggregate

institutional holdings in dual-class firms are significantly lower than those in single-class

firms, after accounting for other factors that affect institutional investment. These results

provide strong evidence that shareholder voting rights do affect institutional investment

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decisions, despite the fact that the U.S. has the most stringent corporate governance

requirements and offers the greatest protection to shareholders. The aggregation of

institutional holdings, however, may mask important heterogeneity across different types

of institutional investors (Brickley, Lease, and Smith (1988), Del Guercio (1996),

Woidtke (2002), and Chen, Harford, and Li (2007)). We next explore whether voting

rights affect the investment decisions of different types of institutions in different ways.

B. Institutional Investment by Type of Institution

Differences in institutional investment across types of institutions may arise as a

result of differences in their fiduciary responsibilities, investment horizon, objectives or

styles. Also, different types of investors may have different assessments of shareholder

voting rights depending on whether they are more or less likely to engage in shareholder

activism.

Investment companies and independent investment advisors are usually short-

term investors that rebalance their portfolios often, have low levels of fiduciary

responsibility, and do not engage in shareholder activism. Thus, these investors are likely

to be the least sensitive to voting rights. On the other hand, long-term investors with

strong fiduciary responsibilities that are more likely to engage in shareholder activism,

such as pension plans and university foundation endowments, are likely to be highly

sensitive to shareholder voting rights. It is less clear whether voting rights should matter

in the investment decisions of bank trust departments and insurance companies. Both

types of institutions are long-term investors, and bank trust departments further have

strong fiduciary duties, suggesting that shareholder voting rights should matter in their

investment decisions. However, both types of institutions also have important potential

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business relations with the firms they invest in, and thus may not use their voting rights

against management. This suggests that voting rights might be of little value to them.

To investigate whether a firm’s dual-class status affects institutional investment

differently across different institution types, in Table V we regress institutional

ownership by each type of institution on Dual and the same control variables as in Table

IV.

Insert Table V here

Panel A reports the pooled OLS regressions with clustered standard errors, while

Panel B reports the results using the Fama-Macbeth regressions with Newey-West

standard errors based on five lags. The table shows that all types of institutional investors

appear to invest less in dual-class firms. The results are similar across different estimation

methods, except for bank trust departments where the coefficient on the Dual dummy is

negative under both specifications but only statistically significant using the Fama-

MacBeth procedure.

As before, for each institution type, the coefficient on Dual captures the

difference in institutional holdings of dual- versus single-class firms, after controlling for

firm and stock characteristics. To assess the economic magnitude of these differences and

the relative importance across investor types, we normalize the coefficient on Dual

reported in Panel B by the average ownership in single-class firms by each institution

type (from Panel A, Table I). This calculation shows that bank trust departments have

ownership stakes in dual-class firms that are 7.2% lower than in single-class firms. The

measure is about 16.9% for insurance companies, 10.6% for investment companies,

10.3% for independent investment advisors, and 17.3% for the other investors type.

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The effects of dual-class status for insurance companies and the other investors

are not statistically different from each other. The difference in the effect of dual-class

status for investment companies and independent advisors is statistically significant, but

not economically significant. The effect for both insurance companies and the group of

other institutions is statistically and economically higher than for investment companies

and independent advisors. The effect for investment companies and independent advisors

is statistically and economically higher than for bank trust departments. Thus, the group

of other investors, which includes the most important shareholder activists, together with

insurance companies, are the types of investors with the lowest (relative) investment in

dual-class firms, followed next by independent investment advisors and investment

companies, and finally by bank trust departments.

As discussed earlier, we cannot rule out that institutional investors may seek to

intervene in corporate matters by purchasing shares with superior voting power when

such shares are traded. In Panel C we repeat our pooled OLS regression analysis of the

effect of dual-class status on institutional ownership by excluding dual-class firms where

both classes are traded. As before, standard errors are clustered at the firm level. We find

that, for each type of institution, the negative effect of dual-class status on institutional

ownership is statistically significant and sometimes even stronger in this sub-sample than

that reported in Panel A.

To summarize, we find that institutional investors tend to invest less in the stock

of dual-class firms, and that the effect of firms’ dual-class status on their investment

decisions is largely independent of institutional manager types. Our results suggest that

voting rights are an important consideration for institutional investors when making their

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portfolio decisions, and that those with more stringent fiduciary responsibilities and

longer investment horizons, as well as those more commonly associated with shareholder

activism, are more sensitive to the lack of voting rights in dual-class firms.

C. Changes in Institutional Ownership Following Unification

To shed further light on whether a firm’s dual-class status affects institutional

investment decisions, in this sub-section we examine how the unification of a dual-class

structure into a single-class affects institutional investment.

The sample for our unification analysis includes both dual-class firms that remain

so for the entire sample period and those that abandon their dual-class structures up to

one year after the unification. The sample contains 79 unification events and 2,160 firm-

year observations. We examine changes in institutional ownership following the

elimination of dual-class structures, using the remaining (non-unifying) dual-class firms

as the control group. In this way, our analysis captures the changes in institutional

ownership due to unification, over and above changes motivated by reasons that are

common across dual-class firms.

In Panel A of Table VI, we regress the change in the level of institutional

ownership (ChgIO) from year t to t+1 (i.e., ChgIO = IOt+1 – IOt) on the Unify dummy,

which is equal to one if the firm abandons its dual-class structure in year t, and zero

otherwise. The standard errors of the coefficients are clustered at the firm level. The

control variables are measured in levels as of year t and are identical to those previously

defined. As an additional control, we include ChgShouts, the percentage change in the

total number of shares outstanding from year t to year t+1. This variable captures any

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new equity issues or repurchases following the unification that may affect the change in

institutional ownership. It also controls for any effect that the exchange of shares as a

result of the unification may have on institutional ownership.

Insert Table VI here

Following the unification of a dual-class structure into a single-class, there is a

large increase in the institutional ownership of the unifying firms over and above the

change in institutional ownership experienced by the control group of non-unifying dual-

class firms. The unification is associated with a 10.8 percentage points increase in total

institutional ownership (see column (1) of Panel A). Compared to the pre-unification

fractional ownership by institutions (almost 35 percentage points), this implies a 30.9%

increase.

The analysis by type of institution in columns (2)-(6) of Panel A shows that,

following the unification of a dual-class structure, all types of institutional investors

significantly increase their holdings in the unifying firms relative to the control group of

non-unifying dual-class firms. In addition, the increase in institutional holdings of the

unifying firms is economically significant. Compared to the pre-unification fractional

ownership, the estimates in Panel A imply a 29.7% increase for bank trust departments,

43.5% for insurance companies, 43.2% for investment companies, 23.1% for independent

investment advisors, and 38.6% for other institutional investors. These findings suggest

that most institutional investors are seriously concerned about the poor corporate

governance in dual-class firms, and that they significantly increase their investment after

the dual-class structure is removed.

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In Panel B we repeat the analysis in Panel A but we measure the control variables

in changes between year t and year t-1 instead of in levels at year t. These changes are

indicated by the symbol ∆ preceding the corresponding variable. This specification

addresses the concern that changes in the control variables, such as, changes in liquidity

or other factors, could be correlated with the unification event and at the same time cause

changes in institutional ownership. If this is the case, then the estimated coefficient on

Unify reported in Panel A could be biased. However, this is unlikely to be the case since

the results show that replacing the controls in levels by those in changes has little effect

on the coefficient on Unify.

It is possible that our dependent variable, ChgIO, and thus our inference reported

in Panels A and B, may be contaminated by the mechanics of the unification process. As

part of the process the superior-voting shares are exchanged for shares of the surviving

class. As a result, both the total number of shares outstanding (the denominator of IO)

and the number of shares held by institutional investors (the numerator of IO) could be

affected.

The numerator of IO, and thus ChgIO, could be measured with error if

institutional investors hold superior-voting shares that are exchanged for common shares.

This problem would be minimized in firms where the superior-voting shares are not

traded and thus institutional holdings of these shares are likely to be negligible. Thus, we

repeat our analysis on the sub-sample of dual-class firms where only the ordinary shares

are traded. In Panel C we include the control variables in levels and in Panel D we

include the control variables in changes. The results remain statistically significant and

qualitatively similar to those reported in Panels A and B.

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Our inference might also be affected due to the change in the number of shares

outstanding that affects the denominator of our institutional ownership measure (IO). To

explore this issue, we construct a new variable, %ChgIIShrs, defined as the percentage

change in the number of shares held by institutional investors, and use it in place of

ChgIO as the dependent variable.9 Since %ChgIIShrs does not require the number of

shares outstanding for its calculation, it will not be affected by any change in the total

number of shares outstanding due to unification. Table VII reports the results. In Panel A

the control variables are in levels and in Panel B the control variables are in changes. The

results from both panels show that the aggregate institutional ownership increases

following the unification event. With the only exception of insurance companies, there is

statistically significant evidence that institutions of all types increase their shareholdings

post unification.

Insert Table VII here

In Panels C and D of Table VII we repeat the analysis using %ChgIIShrs as the

dependent variable but limit the sample to dual-class firms where only the ordinary

shares are traded. In this case, the mechanics of the unification cannot affect our

inference at all: %ChgIIShrs is not affected by the change in the total number of shares

outstanding, and institutional investors do not participate in the share exchange because

they hold none or little non-traded superior-voting shares prior to the unification. Again,

9 The number of observations is smaller in Table VII than that in Table VI because the variable %ChgIIShrs is not defined when institutional ownership in year t is zero. The results are similar if the dependent variable is defined as the absolute change in the number of shares held by institutional investors (# shares held by institutions in year t+1minus # shares held by institutions in year t).

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our main inferences based on results in Panels A and B remain unchanged, regardless of

whether the control variables are measured in levels or in changes.10

To summarize, we find that unifications are followed by large increases in

institutional ownership, and that the mechanics of the unification process is unlikely to

drive our results.11 Thus, the evidence from unifications is consistent with our previous

evidence that institutional investors do care about voting rights in making their

investment decisions.

IV. Additional Investigation

A. Are Our Results Due to Reverse Causality?

In our empirical analysis we model institutional investors’ investment decisions as

a function of firms’ dual-class status, which we treat as an exogenous stock characteristic.

However, Bushee, Carter, and Gerakos (2007) show that the level and changes in

ownership by governance-sensitive institutional investors are associated with future

changes in governance. Thus, a natural concern that arises is whether it is possible that

causality could go in the other direction: a firm’s decision to keep or abandon its dual-

10 We also used the change in the number of institutional shareholders as the dependent variable, which is unaffected by the unification process. We find that although the coefficient on Unify is always positive, it is only statistically significant in the sub-sample containing the dual-class firms with only the ordinary classes traded when the dependent variable is the change in the total number of institutions, the number of bank trust departments, or the number of investment companies. In summary, the results are weaker, likely because the change in the number of institutions is a less precise measure of the change in the value of institutional investments in the firm, but they are largely consistent with those reported. 11 Moyer, Rao, and Sisneros (1992) find that dual-class recapitalizations are followed by increases in institutional investment in their sample of 114 firms that recapitalized during 1979-1987. This would imply a positive relation between dual-class status and institutional ownership. Our findings differ from theirs largely because the tests correspond to very different sample periods. In particular, institutional investors’ perception of the merit of dual-class shares may have been reversed in our more recent sample period relative to the 1980s. This is evidenced by the public denouncement of dual-class structures by some important institutional investors, such as CalPERS and TIAA-CREF, as well as governance rating and proxy-voting services (e.g., the Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), the Council of Institutional Investors, the Governance Metrics International, and the Corporate Library).

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class structure may be a function of institutional investment decisions. In particular, the

negative relation between dual-class status and institutional ownership that we document

in Tables IV and V could arise if institutions with larger stockholdings are able to force

firms to abandon their dual–class structures.12

To address the concern of reverse causality, in Table VIII we study whether the

level and changes in institutional ownership are associated with future unifications of

dual-class structures into a single-class using the approach in Bushee, Carter, and

Gerakos (2007). For this purpose, we focus on a sample that contains two types of dual-

class firms: those that unify their share classes until the year of unification and those that

maintain their multiple share classes during the entire sample period. We use three

different specifications of Probit models to examine the effect of institutional ownership

on the probability of future unification. In Panel A we estimate the probability as a

function of lagged institutional ownership and control variables. In Panel B we estimate

the probability as a function of lagged institutional ownership and contemporaneous

changes in the control variables. In Panel C we estimate the probability as a function of

lagged changes in institutional ownership and contemporaneous changes in the control

variables. As noted by Bushee, Carter, and Gerakos (2007), including the

contemporaneous changes in the control variables in the last two panels ensures that our

results are not driven by an omitted relation between the level of (or changes in)

institutional ownership and future changes in the control variables.

12 Reverse causality is less of a concern in our time-series tests in Section III.C, since we show that following the unification of dual-class structures into a single-class institutional investors increase their shareholdings in the unifying firm.

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Our main test variables are total institutional ownership, IO, defined as

institutional investors’ dollar investment in the firm’s equity as a percentage of the firm’s

total market value of equity; the ownership in the firm by bank’s trust departments,

BTIO; the ownership by insurance companies, INSCIO; the ownership by investment

companies, INVCIO; the ownership by independent advisors, IAIO; and the ownership by

the other types of institutions, OIIO. Among the control variables, #Mergers is the

number of mergers in the firm’s Fama-French industry; Capex is capital expenditures

divided by assets; ROA is the firm’s return on assets; Distress is a dummy equal to one if

the firm’s cash flow is less than the firm’s interest payments, and zero otherwise; Retearn

is the ratio of the firm’s retained earnings to total assets; and #Shares is the total number

of shares outstanding across all share classes. All other variables were previously defined.

In Panels B and C, the symbol ∆ preceding a variable denotes its change between year t

and year t-1. All regressions include year and 48 Fama-French industry dummies (not

reported), and adjust for the clustering of observations at the firm level.

Insert Table VIII here

The table shows that the prior level of institutional ownership and the prior

changes in institutional ownership have no statistically significant effect on the

probability that the firm will unify its share classes in the following year. This result

holds for both the aggregate institutional ownership variables as well as for the

institutional ownership variables based on each type of institution. These findings,

together with the evidence in Section III.C that institutions increase their ownership in the

firm following unifications, suggest that reverse causality is unlikely to drive the negative

relation between dual-class status and institutional ownership we document in Sections

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III.A and III.B. We thus conclude that this relation is more likely to be driven by

institutions choosing to invest less in dual-class firms than in single-class firms.

B. Insider Ownership and Board Characteristics

Dual-class firms are often family firms, where insiders typically hold a large

fraction of the outstanding shares. Thus, it is possible that institutional ownership is

systematically lower in dual-class firms simply because higher insider ownership reduces

the fraction of shares available for outside investors to purchase. In addition, prior

research shows that institutional investors exhibit preferences for good board

characteristics (e.g., Bushee, Carter, and Gerakos (2007)). If these board characteristics

are correlated with dual-class status, then their omission from the regression analysis

could bias our results. For example, if dual-class firms also have bad board

characteristics, the negative effect of Dual on institutional ownership could be driven by

the omitted board characteristics.

To explore these possibilities, we match our data with ISS/IRRC data on the

equity ownership of corporate insiders and board characteristics. Although this merge

substantially reduces our sample size, we repeat our analysis in Table IV after controlling

for insider ownership, InsiderOwn, defined as the percentage of the firm’s equity held by

insiders (executives and directors), BoardSize, the number of directors serving on the

board, PctIndep, the percentage of board members that are independent directors, and

CEOCOB, a dummy equal to one if the CEO is also the Chairman of the board, and zero

otherwise. The results are reported in Table IX.

Insert Table IX about here

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Column (1) shows that the magnitude of the negative effect of Dual on IO is

much larger in this sub-sample (about 9.6 percentage points), even before controlling for

insider ownership and board characteristics. Columns (2)-(5) add each of InsiderOwn,

BoardSize, PctIndep, and CEOCOB, respectively, and column (6) includes all the

variables simultaneously. We find that even after controlling for insider ownership and

board characteristics, the negative effect of dual-class status on institutional ownership

remains statistically significant. Consistent with our expectations, higher insider

ownership is associated with lower institutional investment, and good board

characteristics (smaller and more independent boards) are associated with higher

institutional ownership. We conclude that the lower institutional ownership in dual-class

firms is not spuriously driven by a correlation between dual-class status and insider

ownership or board characteristics.

C. Institutional Herding

Prior work argues that institutional investors often herd in their investment

decisions and thus in the level of ownership they establish in any given firm (for

example, Nofsinger and Sias (1999)). If institutional herding is correlated with a firm’s

dual-class status, then this could bias our inference due to the classical omitted-variables

problem.

To explore whether our results are robust to this concern, in Table X we further

control for institutional herding using the Lakonishok, Shleifer, and Vishny (1992)

measure which is commonly used in the literature. The herding variable, which we

denote Herd, is constructed to measure the imbalance of institutional trading between

purchases and sales. For each institution and each stock in year t, we first determine the

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change in the number of shares held from year t-1 to year t, adjusted for stock splits. We

code each institution as being a net buyer if the change is positive and a net seller if it is

negative. Herding by institutions for each stock in year t, Herdt, is defined as the number

of net buyers divided by the sum of the number of net buyers and the number of net

sellers. Panel A reports the coefficients from OLS regressions with clustered standard

errors for both aggregate institutional ownership and for each type of institution. Panel B

repeats the analysis using the Fama-MacBeth procedure with Newey-West standard

errors.

Insert Table X about here

The coefficient on Herd is positive and statistically significant both in our regressions for

aggregate institutional ownership and also in those for each type of institution. More

importantly, in all columns the coefficient on Dual remains negative and statistically

significant, and slightly increases in magnitude compared to those reported in Tables IV

and V. Moreover, the coefficients on the control variables also remain similar to those

reported before. Thus, we conclude that institutional herding is unlikely to drive our

results.

D. Institutional Ownership under Alternative Assumptions

When the shares with superior voting rights in dual-class firms are not traded, the

calculation of our institutional ownership variable (IO) assumes that these shares have the

same price as the traded ordinary shares (i.e., a zero voting premium). To the extent that

institutions hold very few of the superior-voting shares, the assumption of a positive

voting premium would have little effect on the numerator of our IO measure (the

estimated value of institutional holdings in the firm). However, a higher voting premium

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will likely increase the denominator (the market value of firm equity), and as a result

would reduce our measure of institutional ownership (IO) for dual-class firms with non-

traded superior-voting shares.

Zingales (1995) shows that the mean (median) premium for the superior-voting

class relative to the inferior-voting class is 10% (3%), so we explore how different

assumptions on the voting premium affect our main analysis. In Table XI we report the

regression results using alternative assumptions for the voting premium.

Insert Table XI about here

In Panel A we assume a 5% voting premium in the calculation of IO and in Panel

B we assume a 10% voting premium. The tables show that, consistent with our

conjecture, the higher voting premium is associated with a larger negative effect of Dual

on IO. Recall that the estimates in column (4) of Table IV imply that institutional

ownership is 3.6 percentage points lower in dual-class firms than in single-class firms.

Results in Table XI show that this difference is almost 4.0 percentage points when the

voting premium is assumed to be 5% (column (1) of Panel A), and 4.4 percentage points

when the premium is assumed to be 10% (column (1) of Panel B). We find similarly

larger effects by type of institution.

E. Using an Alternative Sample Based on a Matching Procedure

The analysis reported in Tables IV and V compares institutional ownership in

dual-class firms to that in the universe of single-class firms. As a robustness check, we

repeat our analysis on the sample based on the matching procedure discussed in Section

II, where we match each dual-class firm in our sample to a single-class firm based on 48

Fama-French industry and total assets. Table XII reports the multivariate regression

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analysis using IO as the dependent variable. Panel A reports the pooled OLS regressions

with clustered standard errors, and Panel B reports the coefficients from the Fama-

MacBeth regressions with Newey-West standard errors based on five lags.

Insert Table XII about here

The OLS results show that aggregate institutional ownership is about 3.3

percentage points lower in dual-class firms than in single-class firms (column (1) of

Panel A), and this difference is similar if we use the Fama-MacBeth procedure (column

(1) of Panel B). Both panels show a uniform negative effect of dual-class status on

institutional ownership by type (columns (2)-(6)), except for bank trust departments.

Overall, the results are statistically significant and of similar magnitude to those reported

in Tables IV and V that use the universe of single-class firms as the control group.

V. Conclusions

We find that institutional ownership in dual-class firms is substantially lower than

it is in comparable single-class firms, and this result holds for all types of institutions.

This difference in investment is more pronounced for long-term investors with strong

fiduciary responsibilities than for short-term investors with low levels of fiduciary

responsibility. In addition, following the unification of dual-class structures, institutions

substantially increase their investment in the new single-class firms. We conclude that the

vast majority of institutional investors do avoid investing in the stock of dual-class firms.

Moreover, this avoidance is economically significant.

Overall, we show that the lack of shareholder voting rights in dual-class firms is

an important factor in institutions’ portfolio decisions, suggesting that a firm’s corporate

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governance attributes matter for institutional investment. In addition, although dual-class

share structures may have some benefits for firms, such as allowing management to focus

on long-term value without worrying about potential takeovers, our study suggests that

they may also compromise firms’ access to equity capital by discouraging investment by

institutional investors.

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Table I Institutional Ownership in Single-Class Versus Dual-Class Firms

The sample contains 8,360 single-class firms with a total of 37,503 firm-year observations and 614 dual-class firms with a total of 2,694 firm-year observations for the period 1995-2002. Institutional ownership is defined as institutional investors’ dollar investment in the firm’s equity as a percentage of the firm’s total market value of equity. We report mean values and median values in parentheses below. The last column reports the p-value for t-tests of the difference in means and Wilcoxon rank-sum tests for the difference in medians (in parentheses). Panel A reports institutional ownership in single-class and dual-class firms in our sample. Panel B reports institutional ownership in dual-class firms and in a control sample of single-class firms matched by 48 Fama-French industry and total assets.

Panel A. Institutional Ownership – Full Sample

Single-Class Dual-Class Difference P-value Institutional ownership 33.23 34.74 1.52 0.006 (28.35) (33.55) (5.20) (0.000) Bank trust departments 4.22 4.69 0.47 0.000 (2.00) (2.93) (0.93) (0.000) Insurance companies 2.25 2.26 0.01 0.829 (0.65) (1.23) (0.58) (0.000) Investment companies 8.09 8.40 0.31 0.114 (3.81) (6.04) (2.23) (0.000) Independent investment advisors 15.90 16.78 0.87 0.001 (13.52) (15.27) (1.75) (0.000) Other institutional investors 2.83 2.64 -0.19 0.036 (0.75) (1.30) (0.55) (0.000)

Panel B. Institutional Ownership – Matched Sample

Single-Class Dual-Class Difference P-value Institutional ownership 37.98 34.74 -3.24 0.000 (36.67) (33.55) (-3.12) 0.002 Bank trust departments 4.82 4.69 -0.13 0.426 (2.89) (2.93) (-0.04) 0.268 Insurance companies 2.70 2.26 -0.44 0.001 (1.21) (1.23) (0.02) 0.203 Investment companies 9.04 8.40 -0.65 0.012 (6.09) (6.04) (-0.05) 0.232 Independent investment advisors 18.37 16.78 -1.59 0.000 (17.19) (15.27) (-2.12) 0.006 Other institutional investors 3.11 2.64 -0.48 0.000 (1.51) (1.30) (-0.21) 0.814

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Table II Sample Characteristics

The sample contains 8,360 single-class firms with a total of 37,503 firm-year observations and 614 dual-class firms with a total of 2,694 firm-year observations for the period 1995-2002. We report mean values and median values in parentheses below. The last column reports the p-value for t-tests of the difference in means and Wilcoxon rank-sum tests for the difference in medians (in parentheses). Mktcap is market capitalization, defined as the dollar value of all share classes at the end of the year (in millions of 2002 dollars); Return is the annual return on the firm’s stock, defined as the value-weighted average of the returns across traded classes over the year; Divyield is the dividend yield, defined as the ratio of total dividend payout to stock price; Retvol is the volatility of stock returns, defined as the value-weighted average of the stock return volatility across traded classes using monthly stock returns over the prior year; Turnover is the share turnover ratio, defined as the value-weighted average of the ratio of the trading volume to the number of shares outstanding at the end of the previous year across all traded classes; M/B is the market-to-book ratio, defined as the market value of assets divided by book value of assets; Leverage is financial leverage, defined as the ratio of total debt to the market value of assets; Firmage is firm age, defined as the number of years since the firm first appears in CRSP; Price is the share price, defined as the value-weighted average of the stock price across traded classes at the end of the year (in 2002 dollars); S&P500 is an S&P 500 membership dummy, which equals one if the firm is in the S&P 500 Index, and zero otherwise; #Analysts is analyst coverage, defined as the number of IBES analysts covering the firm.

Single-Class Dual-Class Difference P-value Mktcap (market capitalization) 2377.03 1903.72 -473.31 0.090 (152.91) (331.78) (178.87) (0.000) Return (annual return) 0.20 0.19 -0.01 0.543 (0.01) (0.04) (0.03) (0.002) Divyield (dividend yield) 0.66 0.81 0.15 0.000 (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) - Retvol (return volatility) 0.64 0.52 -0.12 0.000 (0.53) (0.43) (-0.10) (0.000) Turnover (shares turnover) 14.76 9.17 -5.59 0.000 (9.10) (5.62) (-3.48) (0.000) M/B (market-to-book) 2.03 1.52 -0.51 0.000 (1.18) (1.03) (-0.15) (0.000) Leverage (financial leverage) 0.22 0.29 0.07 0.000 (0.14) (0.22) (0.08) (0.000) Firmage (age since listing) 12.48 13.52 1.05 0.000 (7.00) (9.00) (2.00) (0.000) Price (share price) 20.69 180.87 160.18 0.000 (10.92) (16.91) (5.99) (0.000) S&P500 (S&P500 membership) 0.08 0.07 -0.01 0.065 (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) - #Analysts (analyst coverage) 1.53 1.44 -0.09 0.059 (0.58) (0.67) (0.09) (0.001)

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Table III Correlation Matrix

The sample contains 8,360 single-class firms with a total of 37,503 firm-year observations and 614 dual-class firms with a total of 2,694 firm-year observations for the period 1995-2002. This table reports pairwise correlations among the right-hand-side variables used in our multivariate analysis. Dual is the dual-class status dummy, which equals one if the firm has multiple share classes, and zero otherwise; Mktcap is market capitalization, defined as the dollar value of all share classes at the end of the year (in millions of 2002 dollars); Return is the annual return on the firm’s stock, defined as the value-weighted average of the returns across traded classes over the year; Divyield is the dividend yield, defined as the ratio of total dividend payout to stock price; Retvol is the volatility of stock returns, defined as the value-weighted average of the stock return volatility across traded classes using monthly stock returns over the prior year; Turnover is the share turnover ratio, defined as the value-weighted average of the ratio of the trading volume to the number of shares outstanding at the end of the previous year across all traded classes; M/B is the market-to-book ratio, defined as the market value of assets divided by book value of assets; Leverage is financial leverage, defined as the ratio of total debt to the market value of assets; Firmage is firm age, defined as the number of years since the firm first appears in CRSP; Price is the share price, defined as the value-weighted average of the stock price across traded classes at the end of the year (in 2002 dollars); S&P500 is an S&P 500 membership dummy, which equals one if the firm is in the S&P 500 Index, and zero otherwise; #Analysts is analyst coverage, defined as the number of IBES analysts covering the firm. *, **, and *** indicate significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% levels, respectively.

Dual Mktcap Return Divyield Retvol Turnover M/B Leverage Firmage Price S&P500Mktcap 0.008 -

Return

-0.003 0.022***

Divyield

0.024*** 0.060*** -0.012**

Retvol

-0.065*** -0.090*** 0.183* -0.252***

Turnover

-0.062*** 0.010*** 0.065*** -0.136*** 0.287***

M/B -0.040*** 0.061*** -0.055*** -0.125*** 0.152*** 0.175***

Leverage

0.067*** -0.026*** 0.029*** 0.191*** -0.078*** -0.155*** -0.293***

Firmage

0.018*** 0.230*** -0.010** 0.387*** -0.270*** -0.119*** -0.130*** 0.157***

Price 0.044*** 0.104*** 0.005 -0.002 -0.019*** -0.007 -0.004 -0.009* 0.017***

S&P500

-0.009 0.384*** 0.007 0.155*** -0.161*** 0.030*** 0.026*** 0.001 0.368*** 0.006

#Analysts -0.009 0.368*** -0.016*** 0.058*** -0.137*** 0.186*** 0.086*** -0.059*** 0.237*** 0.005*** 0.518***

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Table IV The Effect of Dual-Class Status on Institutional Ownership

The sample contains 8,360 single-class firms with a total of 37,503 firm-year observations and 614 dual-class firms with a total of 2,694 firm-year observations for the period 1995-2002. This table reports regressions of institutional ownership (IO) on dual-class status (Dual) and lagged control variables. Institutional ownership, IO, is defined as institutional investors’ dollar investment in the firm’s equity as a percentage of the firm’s total market value of equity (non-traded superior-voting shares are assume to have the same price as the traded inferior-voting shares); Dual is the dual-class status dummy, which equals one if the firm has multiple share classes, and zero otherwise; Mktcap is market capitalization, defined as the dollar value of all share classes at the end of the year (in millions of 2002 dollars); Return is the annual return on the firm’s stock, defined as the value-weighted average of the returns across traded classes over the year; Divyield is the dividend yield, defined as the ratio of total dividend payout to stock price; Retvol is the volatility of stock returns, defined as the value-weighted average of the stock return volatility across traded classes using monthly stock returns over the prior year; Turnover is the share turnover ratio, defined as the value-weighted average of the ratio of the trading volume to the number of shares outstanding at the end of the previous year across all traded classes; M/B is the market-to-book ratio, defined as the market value of assets divided by book value of assets; Leverage is financial leverage, defined as the ratio of total debt to the market value of assets; Firmage is firm age, defined as the number of years since the firm first appears in CRSP; Price is the share price, defined as the value-weighted average of the stock price across traded classes at the end of the year (in 2002 dollars); S&P500 is an S&P 500 membership dummy, which equals one if the firm is in the S&P 500 Index, and zero otherwise; #Analysts is analyst coverage, defined as the number of IBES analysts covering the firm. Panel A reports the coefficients from pooled OLS regressions which include year dummies and 48 Fama-French industry dummies. The standard errors are adjusted for the clustering of observations at the firm level. Panel B reports the coefficients on the dual-class status dummy from Fama-MacBeth regressions with Newey-West standard errors based on five lags. Panel C reports the coefficients on the dual-class status dummy using a sub-sample where dual-class firms with both share classes traded are excluded. In all panels, we omit the coefficients on the 48 Fama-French industry dummies and the year dummies. Standard errors are given in brackets. *, **, and *** indicate significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% levels, respectively.

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Panel A. Pooled OLS Regressions with Clustered Standard Errors (1) (2) (3) (4) Dual -2.551*** -2.334*** -3.694*** -3.597*** [0.871] [0.853] [0.827] [0.826] Ln(Mktcap) 8.404*** 7.816*** 5.158*** 4.771*** [0.120] [0.133] [0.224] [0.256] Return -1.026*** -0.554*** -1.840*** -1.772*** [0.134] [0.107] [0.334] [0.325] Divyield -1.155*** -1.199*** -1.599*** -1.576*** [0.138] [0.139] [0.145] [0.144] Retvol -6.510*** -2.406*** -2.394*** [0.489] [0.506] [0.495] Turnover 0.139*** 0.135*** 0.129*** [0.024] [0.024] [0.024] M/B -0.660*** -0.658*** [0.061] [0.061] Leverage 4.931*** 4.944*** [0.884] [0.881] Firmage 0.057*** 0.055*** [0.020] [0.020] Ln(Price) 6.213*** 6.416*** [0.404] [0.403] S&P500 -0.441 [1.100] #Analysts 0.438** [0.183] Intercept -70.522*** -61.957*** -46.949*** -43.300*** [1.360] [1.524] [1.887] [2.280] # of obs. 40197 40197 40197 40197 Adjusted R2 0.446 0.460 0.489 0.490

Panel B. Fama-MacBeth Regressions with Newey-West Standard Errors

(1) (2) (3) (4) Dual -2.524*** -2.214*** -3.681*** -3.620*** [0.280] [0.351] [0.338] [0.273]

Includes the same controls as in Panel A # of obs. 40197 40197 40197 40197

Panel C. Pooled OLS Regressions Using a Sub-Sample

Where Dual-Class Firms with Both Share Classes Traded Are Excluded (1) (2) (3) (4) Dual -3.636*** -3.387*** -4.726*** -4.651*** [1.038] [1.013] [0.967] [0.965]

Includes the same controls as in Panel A # of obs. 39451 39451 39451 39451 Adjusted R2 0.447 0.461 0.491 0.492

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Table V The Effect of Dual-Class Status on Institutional Ownership by Type of Institution

The sample contains 8,360 single-class firms with a total of 37,503 firm-year observations and 614 dual-class firms with a total of 2,694 firm-year observations for the period 1995-2002. This table reports regressions of institutional ownership (IO) by type of institution on dual-class status (Dual) and lagged control variables. Institutional ownership, IO, is defined as institutional investors’ dollar investment in the firm’s equity as a percentage of the firm’s total market value of equity (non-traded superior-voting shares are assume to have the same price as the traded inferior-voting shares); Dual is the dual-class status dummy, which equals one if the firm has multiple share classes, and zero otherwise; Mktcap is market capitalization, defined as the dollar value of all share classes at the end of the year (in millions of 2002 dollars); Return is the annual return on the firm’s stock, defined as the value-weighted average of the returns across traded classes over the year; Divyield is the dividend yield, defined as the ratio of total dividend payout to stock price; Retvol is the volatility of stock returns, defined as the value-weighted average of the stock return volatility across traded classes using monthly stock returns over the prior year; Turnover is the share turnover ratio, defined as the value-weighted average of the ratio of the trading volume to the number of shares outstanding at the end of the previous year across all traded classes; M/B is the market-to-book ratio, defined as the market value of assets divided by book value of assets; Leverage is financial leverage, defined as the ratio of total debt to the market value of assets; Firmage is firm age, defined as the number of years since the firm first appears in CRSP; Price is the share price, defined as the value-weighted average of the stock price across traded classes at the end of the year (in 2002 dollars); S&P500 is an S&P 500 membership dummy, which equals one if the firm is in the S&P 500 Index, and zero otherwise; #Analysts is analyst coverage, defined as the number of IBES analysts covering the firm. Panel A reports the coefficients from pooled OLS regressions which include year dummies and 48 Fama-French industry dummies. The standard errors are adjusted for the clustering of observations at the firm level. Panel B reports the coefficients on the dual-class status dummy from Fama-MacBeth regressions with Newey-West standard errors based on five lags. Panel C reports the coefficients on the dual-class status dummy using a sub-sample where dual-class firms with both share classes traded are excluded. In all panels, we omit the coefficients on the 48 Fama-French industry dummies and the year dummies. Standard errors are given in brackets. *, **, and *** indicate significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% levels, respectively.

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Panel A. Pooled OLS Regressions with Clustered Standard Errors

(1) Banks trust departments

(2) Insurance companies

(3) Investment companies

(4) Indep. Inv.

advisors

(5) Other

institutions Dual -0.270 -0.389*** -0.883*** -1.658*** -0.445*** [0.273] [0.142] [0.298] [0.483] [0.114] Ln(Mktcap) 0.815*** 0.610*** 1.287*** 1.399*** 0.662*** [0.053] [0.051] [0.087] [0.137] [0.047] Return -0.261*** -0.157*** -0.475*** -0.680*** -0.204*** [0.052] [0.034] [0.092] [0.120] [0.042] Divyield 0.071* -0.111*** -0.505*** -0.894*** -0.146*** [0.040] [0.027] [0.047] [0.080] [0.023] Retvol -0.195*** -0.166*** -0.650*** -1.447*** 0.049 [0.065] [0.054] [0.155] [0.244] [0.072] Turnover 0.010*** 0.007*** 0.043*** 0.057*** 0.014*** [0.002] [0.002] [0.008] [0.011] [0.003] M/B -0.071*** -0.039*** -0.116*** -0.355*** -0.080*** [0.009] [0.006] [0.019] [0.033] [0.009] Leverage 0.295 0.880*** 0.677** 3.140*** 0.021 [0.223] [0.231] [0.294] [0.537] [0.155] Firmage 0.043*** 0.007* -0.012* 0.011 0.005 [0.004] [0.004] [0.007] [0.010] [0.003] Ln(Price) 0.488*** 0.196*** 1.848*** 3.849*** 0.067 [0.071] [0.064] [0.126] [0.209] [0.055] S&P500 2.318*** 0.365* 2.104*** -4.699*** -0.543*** [0.259] [0.188] [0.472] [0.516] [0.180] #Analysts 0.064** 0.035 0.528*** -0.209*** 0.014 [0.032] [0.028] [0.071] [0.078] [0.025] Intercept -7.477*** -5.656*** -13.175*** -10.517*** -6.553*** [0.485] [0.466] [0.787] [1.239] [0.442] # of obs. 40197 40197 40197 40197 40197 Adjusted R2 0.351 0.169 0.412 0.295 0.228

Panel B. Fama-MacBeth Regressions with Newey-West Standard Errors

(1) Banks trust departments

(2) Insurance companies

(3) Investment companies

(4) Indep. Inv.

advisors

(5) Other

institutions Dual -0.305*** -0.381*** -0.855*** -1.633*** -0.489** [0.050] [0.034] [0.043] [0.412] [0.149]

Includes the same controls as in Panel A # of obs. 40197 40197 40197 40197 40197

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Panel C. Pooled OLS Regressions Using a Sub-Sample Where Dual-Class Firms with Both Share Classes Traded Are Excluded

(1) Banks trust departments

(2) Insurance companies

(3) Investment companies

(4) Indep. Inv.

advisors

(5) Other

institutions Dual -0.844*** -0.596*** -1.231*** -1.533*** -0.470*** [0.194] [0.139] [0.351] [0.578] [0.131]

Includes the same controls as in Panel A # of obs. 39451 39451 39451 39451 39451 Adjusted R2 0.364 0.170 0.413 0.296 0.228

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Table VI Changes in Institutional Ownership Following Unification

The sample consists of dual-class firms that abandon their dual-class structure up to one year after the unification and dual-class firms during the entire sample period. There are 79 unification events. This table reports the results of OLS regressions of the change in the level of institutional ownership following unification. The dependent variable is the change in institutional ownership ChgIO, defined as IO in year t+1 minus IO in year t, where IO is institutional investors’ dollar investment in the firm’s equity as a percentage of the firm’s total market value of equity (non-traded superior-voting shares are assume to have the same price as the traded inferior-voting shares). Unify is the unification dummy, which equals one if the firm abandons its dual-class structure in year t, and zero otherwise. ChgShouts is the percentage change in the number of shares outstanding from year t to year t+1. The rest of control variables are measured in year t. Mktcap is market capitalization, defined as the dollar value of all share classes at the end of the year (in millions of 2002 dollars); Return is the annual return on the firm’s stock, defined as the value-weighted average of the returns across traded classes over the year; Divyield is the dividend yield, defined as the ratio of total dividend payout to stock price; Retvol is the volatility of stock returns, defined as the value-weighted average of the stock return volatility across traded classes using monthly stock returns over the prior year; Turnover is the share turnover ratio, defined as the value-weighted average of the ratio of the trading volume to the number of shares outstanding at the end of the previous year across all traded classes; M/B is the market-to-book ratio, defined as the market value of assets divided by book value of assets; Leverage is financial leverage, defined as the ratio of total debt to the market value of assets; Firmage is firm age, defined as the number of years since the firm first appears in CRSP; Price is the share price, defined as the value-weighted average of the stock price across traded classes at the end of the year (in 2002 dollars); S&P500 is an S&P 500 membership dummy, which equals one if the firm is in the S&P 500 Index, and zero otherwise; #Analysts is analyst coverage, defined as the number of IBES analysts covering the firm. The ∆ operator in front of a variable denotes its value in year t minus its value in year t-1. In Panel A we report the coefficients from regressions of ChgIO on Unify and the control variables in levels. In Panel B we report the coefficients from regressions of ChgIO on Unify and the control variables in changes (except Return, Firmage, and S&P500). Panel C reports the coefficients on Unify using a sub-sample of dual-class firms with only the ordinary classes traded. The control variables are in levels. Panel D reports the coefficients on Unify using a sub-sample of dual-class firms with only the ordinary classes traded. The control variables are in changes (except Return, Firmage, and S&P500). In all panels, all regressions include year and 48 Fama-French industry dummies (not reported), and adjust for the clustering of observations at the firm level. Standard errors are given in brackets. *, **, and *** indicate significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% levels, respectively.

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Panel A. OLS Regressions with Clustered Standard Errors – Controls in Levels

(1) Institutional Ownership

(2) Banks trust departments

(3) Insurance companies

(4) Investment companies

(5) Indep. inv. advisors

(6) Other

institutions

Unify 10.793*** 1.393*** 0.982** 3.625*** 3.871*** 1.020** [2.141] [0.497] [0.409] [0.796] [1.088] [0.419] ChgShouts 0.913 -0.015 0.800*** -0.151 0.512 -0.200 [0.971] [0.247] [0.240] [0.511] [0.557] [0.296] Ln(Mktcap) 0.338 -0.003 -0.089 0.093 0.246* 0.114** [0.211] [0.054] [0.063] [0.099] [0.129] [0.047] Return 1.959*** 0.201*** 0.208*** 0.851*** 0.667*** 0.037 [0.393] [0.072] [0.053] [0.170] [0.216] [0.079] Divyield 0.093 0.008 0.046 0.064 0.012 -0.033 [0.175] [0.029] [0.043] [0.091] [0.077] [0.022] Retvol -2.233*** -0.399** -0.191 -1.312*** -0.509 0.166 [0.855] [0.172] [0.141] [0.386] [0.394] [0.323] Turnover 0.061 0.016*** 0.001 0.005 0.014 0.028*** [0.043] [0.006] [0.007] [0.019] [0.018] [0.009] M/B 0.051 0.039 0.025 0.214** -0.164 -0.077* [0.231] [0.063] [0.054] [0.104] [0.102] [0.046] Leverage -0.248 -0.029 -0.148 -0.730* 0.385 0.251 [0.921] [0.209] [0.176] [0.407] [0.520] [0.239] Firmage -0.032* 0.003 0.001 -0.019** -0.020** 0.005 [0.019] [0.003] [0.006] [0.008] [0.010] [0.003] Ln(Price) 0.883** 0.070 0.108** 0.274 0.296 0.105 [0.408] [0.076] [0.052] [0.166] [0.199] [0.090] S&P500 -1.204 -0.08 0.025 0.698 -1.646*** -0.263 [0.849] [0.185] [0.180] [0.454] [0.435] [0.176] #Analysts -0.172 0.017 0.023 -0.147 -0.021 -0.049 [0.194] [0.037] [0.038] [0.105] [0.096] [0.033] Intercept -6.285*** -0.046 0.119 -0.929 -5.035*** -0.609 [2.164] [0.571] [0.649] [1.002] [1.394] [0.527] # of obs. 2160 2160 2160 2160 2160 2160 Adjusted R2 0.133 0.039 0.024 0.095 0.084 0.082

Panel B. OLS Regressions with Clustered Standard Errors – Controls in Changes

(1) Institutional Ownership

(2) Banks trust departments

(3) Insurance companies

(4) Investment companies

(5) Indep. inv. advisors

(6) Other

institutions

Unify 10.493*** 1.399*** 0.952** 3.454*** 3.737*** 1.059** [2.065] [0.492] [0.411] [0.748] [1.058] [0.429]

The control variables include ChgShouts , ∆Ln(Mktcap) , Return , ∆Divyield , ∆Retvol , ∆Turnover , ∆M/B , ∆Leverage , Firmage , ∆Ln(Price) , S&P500 , ∆#Analysts, year dummies, and industry dummies.

# of obs. 2160 2160 2160 2160 2160 2160 Adjusted R2 0.162 0.044 0.028 0.111 0.095 0.070

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Panel C. OLS Regressions Using a Sub-Sample with Only Ordinary Shares Traded – Controls in Levels

(1) Institutional Ownership

(2) Banks trust departments

(3) Insurance companies

(4) Investment companies

(5) Indep. inv. advisors

(6) Other

institutions

Unify 16.850*** 1.669** 1.813*** 4.560*** 7.358*** 1.433** [4.055] [0.704] [0.592] [1.459] [2.012] [0.659]

The control variables include ChgShouts , Ln(Mktcap) , Return , Divyield , Retvol , Turnover , M/B , Leverage , Firmage , Ln(Price) , S&P500 , #Analysts, year dummies, and industry dummies.

# of obs. 1552 1552 1552 1552 1552 1552 Adjusted R2 0.159 0.059 0.026 0.118 0.104 0.090

Panel D. OLS Regressions Using a Sub-Sample with Only Ordinary Shares Traded – Controls in Changes

(1) Institutional Ownership

(2) Banks trust departments

(3) Insurance companies

(4) Investment companies

(5) Indep. inv. advisors

(6) Other

institutions

Unify 16.077*** 1.567** 1.737*** 4.398*** 7.101*** 1.283* [3.981] [0.734] [0.583] [1.365] [2.010] [0.667]

The control variables include ChgShouts , ∆Ln(Mktcap) , Return , ∆Divyield , ∆Retvol , ∆Turnover , ∆M/B , ∆Leverage , Firmage , ∆Ln(Price) , S&P500 , ∆#Analysts, year dummies, and industry dummies.

# of obs. 1552 1552 1552 1552 1552 1552 Adjusted R2 0.191 0.066 0.027 0.132 0.113 0.081

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Table VII Changes in the Number of Shares Held by Institutional Investors

Following Unification The sample consists of dual-class firms that abandon their dual-class structure up to one year after the unification and dual-class firms during the entire sample period. There are 79 unification events. This table reports the results of OLS regressions of the change in the number of shares held by institutional investors following unification. The dependent variable is the percentage change in the number of shares held by institutional investors %ChgIIShrs, defined as the change in the number of shares held by institutional investors from year t to year t+1 divided by the number of shares held by institutions in year t . Unify is the unification dummy, which equals one if the firm abandons its dual-class structure in year t, and zero otherwise. ChgShouts is the percentage change in the number of shares outstanding from year t to year t+1. The rest of control variables are measured in year t. Mktcap is market capitalization, defined as the dollar value of all share classes at the end of the year (in millions of 2002 dollars); Return is the annual return on the firm’s stock, defined as the value-weighted average of the returns across traded classes over the year; Divyield is the dividend yield, defined as the ratio of total dividend payout to stock price; Retvol is the volatility of stock returns, defined as the value-weighted average of the stock return volatility across traded classes using monthly stock returns over the prior year; Turnover is the share turnover ratio, defined as the value-weighted average of the ratio of the trading volume to the number of shares outstanding at the end of the previous year across all traded classes; M/B is the market-to-book ratio, defined as the market value of assets divided by book value of assets; Leverage is financial leverage, defined as the ratio of total debt to the market value of assets; Firmage is firm age, defined as the number of years since the firm first appears in CRSP; Price is the share price, defined as the value-weighted average of the stock price across traded classes at the end of the year (in 2002 dollars); S&P500 is an S&P 500 membership dummy, which equals one if the firm is in the S&P 500 Index, and zero otherwise; #Analysts is analyst coverage, defined as the number of IBES analysts covering the firm. The ∆ operator in front of a variable denotes its value in year t minus its value in year t-1. In Panel A we report the coefficients from regressions of %ChgIIShrs on Unify and the control variables in levels. In Panel B we report the coefficients from regressions of %ChgIIShrs on Unify and the control variables in changes (except Return, Firmage, and S&P500). Panel C reports the coefficients on Unify using a sub-sample of dual-class firms with only the ordinary classes traded. The control variables are in levels. Panel D reports the coefficients on Unify using a sub-sample of dual-class firms with only the ordinary classes traded. The control variables are in changes (except Return, Firmage, and S&P500). In all panels, all regressions include year and 48 Fama-French industry dummies (not reported), and adjust for the clustering of observations at the firm level. Standard errors are given in brackets. *, **, and *** indicate significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% levels, respectively.

Panel A. OLS Regressions with Clustered Standard Errors – Controls in Levels

(1) Institutional Ownership

(2) Banks trust departments

(3) Insurance companies

(4) Investment companies

(5) Indep. inv. advisors

(6) Other

institutions

Unify 0.335*** 0.424*** 0.287 0.385*** 0.198** 0.295* [0.090] [0.145] [0.182] [0.123] [0.096] [0.159]

The control variables include ChgShouts , Ln(Mktcap) , Return , Divyield , Retvol , Turnover , M/B , Leverage , Firmage , Ln(Price) , S&P500 , #Analysts, year dummies, and industry dummies.

# of obs. 2121 1994 1681 1844 2079 1643 Adjusted R2 0.324 0.177 0.141 0.194 0.271 0.151

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Panel B. OLS Regressions with Clustered Standard Errors – Controls in Changes

(1) Institutional Ownership

(2) Banks trust departments

(3) Insurance companies

(4) Investment companies

(5) Indep. inv. advisors

(6) Other

institutions

Unify 0.316*** 0.384*** 0.276 0.371*** 0.186** 0.267* [0.084] [0.135] [0.182] [0.121] [0.094] [0.153] The control variables include ChgShouts , ∆Ln(Mktcap) , Return , ∆Divyield , ∆Retvol , ∆Turnover , ∆M/B ,

∆Leverage , Firmage , ∆Ln(Price) , S&P500 , ∆#Analysts, year dummies, and industry dummies. # of obs. 2121 1994 1681 1844 2079 1643 Adjusted R2 0.341 0.209 0.149 0.206 0.275 0.170

Panel C. OLS Regressions Using a Sub-Sample with Only Ordinary Shares Traded – Controls in

Levels

(1) Institutional Ownership

(2) Banks trust departments

(3) Insurance companies

(4) Investment companies

(5) Indep. inv. advisors

(6) Other

institutions

Unify 0.622*** 0.567*** 0.799** 0.569*** 0.440** 0.666*** [0.160] [0.206] [0.312] [0.213] [0.174] [0.231]

The control variables include ChgShouts , Ln(Mktcap) , Return , Divyield , Retvol , Turnover , M/B , Leverage , Firmage , Ln(Price) , S&P500 , #Analysts, year dummies, and industry dummies.

# of obs. 1528 1426 1215 1339 1497 1201 Adjusted R2 0.341 0.202 0.142 0.218 0.295 0.177

Panel D. OLS Regressions Using a Sub-Sample with Only Ordinary Shares Traded – Controls in Changes

(1) Institutional Ownership

(2) Banks trust departments

(3) Insurance companies

(4) Investment companies

(5) Indep. inv. advisors

(6) Other

institutions

Unify 0.583*** 0.524** 0.826*** 0.566*** 0.413** 0.577*** [0.151] [0.203] [0.315] [0.218] [0.172] [0.218] The control variables include ChgShouts , ∆Ln(Mktcap) , Return , ∆Divyield , ∆Retvol , ∆Turnover , ∆M/B ,

∆Leverage , Firmage , ∆Ln(Price) , S&P500 , ∆#Analysts, year dummies, and industry dummies. # of obs. 1528 1426 1215 1339 1497 1201 Adjusted R2 0.354 0.224 0.154 0.237 0.301 0.202

Table VIII Institutional Ownership and Future Unification Decisions

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The sample for this analysis consists of dual-class firms that abandon their dual-class structure up to the year of unification and the remaining set of (non-unifying) dual-class firms during the entire sample period. There are 79 unification events. The table reports marginal effects of Probit models of the probability that a dual-class firm unifies its dual-class structure. The dependent variable, Unify, equals one if the firm abandons its dual-class structure in year t, and zero otherwise. Institutional ownership, IO, is defined as institutional investors’ dollar investment in the firm’s equity as a percentage of the firm’s total market value of equity (non-traded superior-voting shares are assume to have the same price as the traded inferior-voting shares). Similarly, BTIO is the ownership in the firm by bank’s trust departments; INSCIO is the ownership by insurance companies; INVCIO is the ownership by investment companies; IAIO is the ownership by independent advisors; and OIIO is the ownership by the other types of institutions. #Mergers is the number of mergers in the firm’s Fama-French industry; Capex is capital expenditures divided by assets; Return is the annual return on the firm’s stock, defined as the value-weighted average of the returns across traded classes over the year; ROA is the firm’s return on assets; Mktcap is market capitalization, defined as the dollar value of all share classes at the end of the year (in millions of 2002 dollars); Divyield is the dividend yield, defined as the ratio of total dividend payout to stock price; Retvol is the volatility of stock returns, defined as the value-weighted average of the stock return volatility across traded classes using monthly stock returns over the prior year; Turnover is the share turnover ratio, defined as the value-weighted average of the ratio of the trading volume to the number of shares outstanding at the end of the previous year across all traded classes; M/B is the market-to-book ratio, defined as the market value of assets divided by book value of assets; Leverage is financial leverage, defined as the ratio of total debt to the market value of assets; Firmage is firm age, defined as the number of years since the firm first appears in CRSP; Price is the share price, defined as the value-weighted average of the stock price across traded classes at the end of the year (in 2002 dollars); S&P500 is an S&P 500 membership dummy, which equals one if the firm is in the S&P 500 Index, and zero otherwise; #Analysts is analyst coverage, defined as the number of IBES analysts covering the firm; Distress is a dummy equal to one if the firm’s cash flow is less than the firm’s interest payments, and zero otherwise; Retearn is the ratio of the firm’s retained earnings to total assets; #Shares is the total number of shares outstanding across all share classes. Let P(.) be the probability that the firm unifies its dual-class structure into a single-class in year t, and using ∆ to denote the change of a variable between year t and year t-1. Panel A estimates the P(.) as a function of lagged institutional ownership and control variables: P(.) = F[α + β1 IOt-1 + β2 #Mergers t-1 + β3 Capex t-1 + β4 Ret t-1 + β5 ROA t-1 + β6 Ln(Mktcap) t-1

+ β7 Divyield t-1 + β8 Retvol t-1 + β9Turnover t-1 + β10 M/B t-1 + β11 Leverage t-1 + β12 Firmage t-1

+ β13 Ln(Price)t-1 + β14 S&P500 t-1 + β15 #Analysts t-1 + β16 Distress t-1 + β17 Retearn t-1 + εt] Panel B estimates P(.) as a function of lagged institutional ownership and contemporaneous changes in the control variables: P(.) = F[α + β1 IOt-1 + β2 #Mergers t-1 + β3 ∆Capex + β4 Ret t-1 + β5 ROA t-1 + β6 ∆Ln(Mktcap) + β7 ∆Divyield + β8 ∆Retvol + β9 ∆Turnover + β10 ∆M/B + β11 ∆Leverage + β12 ∆Firmage + β13 ∆Ln(Price) + β14 S&P500 t-1 + β15 ∆#Analysts + β16 Distress t-1 + β17 ∆Retearn + β17 ∆#Shares + εt] Panel C estimates P(.) as a function of lagged changes institutional ownership and contemporaneous changes in the control variables: P(.) = F[α + β1 (IOt-1 - IOt-2) + β2 IOt-2 + β3 #Mergers t-1 + β4 ∆Capex + β5 Ret t-1 + β6 ROA t-1 + β7 ∆Ln(Mktcap) + Β8 ∆Divyield + β9 ∆Retvol + β10 ∆Turnover + β11 ∆M/B + β12 ∆Leverage + β13 ∆Firmage + β14 ∆Ln(Price) + β15 S&P500 t-1 + β16 ∆#Analysts + β17 Distress t-1 + β18 ∆Retearn + β19 ∆#Shares + εt] The coefficients on the institutional ownership variables are multiplied by 1000. All regressions include year and 48 Fama-French industry dummies, and adjust for the clustering of observations at the firm level. The coefficients on the control variables, industry dummies, and year dummies are omitted for brevity. Standard errors are given in brackets. *, **, and *** indicate significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% levels, respectively.

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Panel A: Probability of Unification as a Function of Lagged Institutional Ownership and Control Variables (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) IO t-1 x 1000 -0.022 [0.186] BTIO t-1 x 1000 -0.149 -0.086 [0.664] [0.624] INSCIO t-1 x 1000 0.418 0.441 [0.540] [0.550] INVCIO t-1 x 1000 -0.019 0.033 [0.462] [0.460] IAIO t-1 x 1000 -0.088 -0.066 [0.296] [0.294] OIIO t-1 x 1000 -0.622 -0.582 [1.214] [1.232] The control variables include #Mergers t-1 , Capex t-1 , Ret t-1 , ROA t-1 , Ln(Mktcap) t-1 , Divyield t-1 , Retvol t-1 , Turnover t-1 , M/B t-1 , Leverage t-1 , Firmage t-1 , Ln(Price)t-1 , S&P500 t-1 , #Analysts t-1

, Distress t-1 , Retearn t-1 , industry dummies and year dummies. # of obs. 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600

Panel B: Probability of Unification as a Function of Lagged Institutional Ownership and Contemporaneous Changes in the Control Variables. (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) IO t-1 x 1000 0.056 [0.154] BTIO t-1 x 1000 -0.045 -0.097 [0.468] [0.475] INSCIO t-1 x 1000 0.550 0.563 [0.544] [0.558] INVCIO t-1 x 1000 -0.072 -0.211 [0.382] [0.387] IAIO t-1 x 1000 0.100 0.120 [0.274] [0.266] OIIO t-1 x 1000 0.167 0.110 [1.082] [1.134] The control variables include #Mergers t-1 , ∆Capex , Ret t-1 , ROA t-1 , ∆Ln(Mktcap) , ∆Divyield , ∆Retvol , ∆Turnover , ∆M/B , ∆Leverage , ∆Firmage , ∆Ln(Price) , S&P500 t-1 , ∆#Analysts ,

Distress t-1 , ∆Retearn , ∆#Shares, industry dummies and year dummies. # of obs. 1588 1588 1588 1588 1588 1588 1588

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Panel C: Probability of Unification as a Function of Lagged Change in Institutional Ownership and Contemporaneous Changes in the Control Variables. (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) ∆IO t-1 x 1000 -0.392 [0.260] IO t-2 x 1000 0.110 [0.174] ∆BTIO t-1 x 1000 -1.222 -0.290 [1.173] [0.960] BTIO t-2 x 1000 -0.079 -0.086 [0.528] [0.455] ∆INSCIO t-1 x 1000 0.517 0.233 [0.452] [0.538] INSCIO t-2 x 1000 1.050 0.692 [0.954] [0.985] ∆INVCIO t-1 x 1000 -0.860 -0.569 [0.699] [0.577] INVCIO t-2 x 1000 -0.244 -0.417 [0.449] [0.463] ∆IAIO t-1 x 1000 -0.669 -0.450 [0.458] [0.443] IAIO t-2 x 1000 0.193 0.239 [0.305] [0.313] ∆OIIO t-1 x 1000 -1.423 -0.795 [1.264] [1.167] OIIO t-2 x 1000 0.696 0.701 [1.405] [1.392]

The control variables include #Mergers t-1 , ∆Capex , Ret t-1 , ROA t-1 , ∆Ln(Mktcap) , ∆Divyield , ∆Retvol , ∆Turnover , ∆M/B , ∆Leverage , ∆Firmage , ∆Ln(Price) , S&P500 t-1 , ∆#Analysts ,

Distress t-1 , ∆Retearn , ∆#Shares, industry dummies and year dummies. # of obs. 1233 1233 1233 1233 1233 1233 1233

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Table IX

Controlling for Insider Ownership and Board Characteristics

The sample is a sub-sample of our full sample for which insider ownership and board characteristics are available. This table reports pooled OLS regressions of institutional ownership (IO) on dual-class status (Dual) and lagged control variables. Institutional ownership, IO, is defined as institutional investors’ dollar investment in the firm’s equity as a percentage of the firm’s total market value of equity (non-traded superior-voting shares are assume to have the same price as the traded inferior-voting shares). Dual is the dual-class status dummy, which equals one if the firm has multiple share classes, and zero otherwise. InsiderOwn is the percentage of the firm’s equity held by insiders. BoardSize is the number of directors serving on the board. PctIndep is the percentage of the board members that are independent directors. CEOCOB is a dummy equal to one if the CEO is also the Chairman of the board, and zero otherwise. All other control variables are the same as in Table IV, and are omitted for brevity. Mktcap is market capitalization, defined as the dollar value of all share classes at the end of the year (in millions of 2002 dollars); Return is the annual return on the firm’s stock, defined as the value-weighted average of the returns across traded classes over the year; Divyield is the dividend yield, defined as the ratio of total dividend payout to stock price; Retvol is the volatility of stock returns, defined as the value-weighted average of the stock return volatility across traded classes using monthly stock returns over the prior year; Turnover is the share turnover ratio, defined as the value-weighted average of the ratio of the trading volume to the number of shares outstanding at the end of the previous year across all traded classes; M/B is the market-to-book ratio, defined as the market value of assets divided by book value of assets; Leverage is financial leverage, defined as the ratio of total debt to the market value of assets; Firmage is firm age, defined as the number of years since the firm first appears in CRSP; Price is the share price, defined as the value-weighted average of the stock price across traded classes at the end of the year (in 2002 dollars); S&P500 is an S&P 500 membership dummy, which equals one if the firm is in the S&P 500 Index, and zero otherwise; #Analysts is analyst coverage, defined as the number of IBES analysts covering the firm. All regressions include year and 48 Fama-French industry dummies, and adjust for the clustering of observations at the firm level. Standard errors are given in brackets. *, **, and *** indicate significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% levels, respectively. (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

Dual -9.604*** -8.836*** -9.414*** -7.542*** -9.506*** -7.578*** [1.411] [1.339] [1.421] [1.473] [1.418] [1.401] InsiderOwn -0.639*** -0.609*** [0.036] [0.036] BoardSize -0.627*** -0.796*** [0.146] [0.134] PctIndep 0.171*** 0.079*** [0.019] [0.018] CEOCOB 1.049 1.067* [0.648] [0.597]

Includes all the controls in Table IV # of obs. 8079 8079 8079 8079 8079 8079 Adjusted R2 0.336 0.408 0.341 0.359 0.337 0.422

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Table X Controlling for Institutional Herding

The sample contains 8,360 single-class firms with a total of 37,503 firm-year observations and 614 dual-class firms with a total of 2,694 firm-year observations for the period 1995-2002. This table reports regressions of institutional ownership (IO) by type of institution on dual-class status (Dual) and lagged control variables. Institutional ownership, IO, is defined as institutional investors’ dollar investment in the firm’s equity as a percentage of the firm’s total market value of equity (non-traded superior-voting shares are assume to have the same price as the traded inferior-voting shares); the Lakonishok, Shleifer, and Vishny (1992) proxy for institutional investors’ herding in their investment decisions, Herd, is defined as the number of institutions that are net buyers of the firm’s stock in a given year divided by the sum of the number of institutions that are net buyers and those that are net sellers of the firm’s stock in the same year; Dual is the dual-class status dummy, which equals one if the firm has multiple share classes, and zero otherwise; Mktcap is market capitalization, defined as the dollar value of all share classes at the end of the year (in millions of 2002 dollars); Return is the annual return on the firm’s stock, defined as the value-weighted average of the returns across traded classes over the year; Divyield is the dividend yield, defined as the ratio of total dividend payout to stock price; Retvol is the volatility of stock returns, defined as the value-weighted average of the stock return volatility across traded classes using monthly stock returns over the prior year; Turnover is the share turnover ratio, defined as the value-weighted average of the ratio of the trading volume to the number of shares outstanding at the end of the previous year across all traded classes; M/B is the market-to-book ratio, defined as the market value of assets divided by book value of assets; Leverage is financial leverage, defined as the ratio of total debt to the market value of assets; Firmage is firm age, defined as the number of years since the firm first appears in CRSP; Price is the share price, defined as the value-weighted average of the stock price across traded classes at the end of the year (in 2002 dollars); S&P500 is an S&P 500 membership dummy, which equals one if the firm is in the S&P 500 Index, and zero otherwise; #Analysts is analyst coverage, defined as the number of IBES analysts covering the firm. All regressions include year and 48 Fama-French industry dummies, and adjust for the clustering of observations at the firm level. The coefficients on the control variables, the 48 Fama-French industry dummies, and the year dummies are omitted for brevity. Standard errors are given in brackets. *, **, and *** indicate significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% levels, respectively.

(1) Institutional Ownership

(2) Banks trust departments

(3) Insurance companies

(4) Investment companies

(5) Indep. inv. advisors

(6) Other

institutions

Dual -4.207*** -0.31 -0.406*** -0.987*** -2.059*** -0.492*** [0.812] [0.273] [0.142] [0.296] [0.473] [0.113] Herd 11.194*** 0.724*** 0.303*** 1.911*** 7.363*** 0.862*** [0.411] [0.078] [0.066] [0.152] [0.231] [0.074]

Includes all the controls in Tables IV and V # of obs. 40197 40197 40197 40197 40197 40197 Adjusted R2 0.505 0.353 0.169 0.415 0.321 0.231

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Table XI Different Assumptions for the Voting Premium

The sample contains 8,360 single-class firms with a total of 37,503 firm-year observations and 614 dual-class firms with a total of 2,694 firm-year observations for the period 1995-2002. This table reports pooled OLS regressions of institutional ownership (IO) and institutional ownership by type of institution on dual-class status (Dual) and lagged control variables. Dual is the dual-class status dummy, which equals one if the firm has multiple share classes, and zero otherwise; Mktcap is market capitalization, defined as the dollar value of all share classes at the end of the year (in millions of 2002 dollars); Return is the annual return on the firm’s stock, defined as the value-weighted average of the returns across traded classes over the year; Divyield is the dividend yield, defined as the ratio of total dividend payout to stock price; Retvol is the volatility of stock returns, defined as the value-weighted average of the stock return volatility across traded classes using monthly stock returns over the prior year; Turnover is the share turnover ratio, defined as the value-weighted average of the ratio of the trading volume to the number of shares outstanding at the end of the previous year across all traded classes; M/B is the market-to-book ratio, defined as the market value of assets divided by book value of assets; Leverage is financial leverage, defined as the ratio of total debt to the market value of assets; Firmage is firm age, defined as the number of years since the firm first appears in CRSP; Price is the share price, defined as the value-weighted average of the stock price across traded classes at the end of the year (in 2002 dollars); S&P500 is an S&P 500 membership dummy, which equals one if the firm is in the S&P 500 Index, and zero otherwise; #Analysts is analyst coverage, defined as the number of IBES analysts covering the firm. All regressions include year and 48 Fama-French industry dummies, and adjust for the clustering of observations at the firm level. The coefficients on the control variables, the 48 Fama-French industry dummies, and the year dummies are omitted for brevity. In Panel A, institutional ownership is defined as institutional investors’ dollar investment in the firm’s equity as a percentage of the firm’s total market value of equity (non-traded superior-voting shares are assumed to have a price that is 5% higher than the price of traded inferior-voting shares). In Panel B, institutional ownership is defined as institutional investors’ dollar investment in the firm’s equity as a percentage of the firm’s total market value of equity (non-traded superior-voting shares are assumed to have a price that is 10% higher than the price of traded inferior-voting shares). Standard errors are given in brackets. *, **, and *** indicate significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% levels, respectively.

Panel A. Using 5% Voting Premium to Compute IO

(1) Institutional Ownership

(2) Banks trust departments

(3) Insurance companies

(4) Investment companies

(5) Indep. inv. advisors

(6) Other

institutions

Dual -3.992*** -0.317 -0.416*** -0.983*** -1.855*** -0.472*** [0.828] [0.273] [0.142] [0.298] [0.483] [0.114]

Includes all the controls in Tables IV and V # of obs. 40197 40197 40197 40197 40197 40197 Adjusted R2 0.489 0.351 0.169 0.412 0.295 0.228

Panel B. Using 10% Voting Premium to Compute IO

(1) Institutional Ownership

(2) Banks trust departments

(3) Insurance companies

(4) Investment companies

(5) Indep. inv. advisors

(6) Other

institutions

Dual -4.379*** -0.362 -0.443*** -1.080*** -2.047*** -0.499*** [0.831] [0.273] [0.141] [0.297] [0.482] [0.113]

Includes all the controls in Tables IV and V # of obs. 40197 40197 40197 40197 40197 40197 Adjusted R2 0.489 0.351 0.169 0.412 0.294 0.228

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Table XII Matched Sample Approach

The sample contains 2,694 dual-class firm-year observations and an equal number of single-class firm-year observations for the period 1995-2002. The single-class control group is obtained by matching the dual-class firms in our sample based on 48 Fama-French industry and total assets. This table reports regressions of institutional ownership (IO) and institutional ownership by type of institution on dual-class status (Dual) and lagged control variables. Institutional ownership, IO, is defined as institutional investors’ dollar investment in the firm’s equity as a percentage of the firm’s total market value of equity (non-traded superior-voting shares are assume to have the same price as the traded inferior-voting shares); Dual is the dual-class status dummy, which equals one if the firm has multiple share classes, and zero otherwise; Mktcap is market capitalization, defined as the dollar value of all share classes at the end of the year (in millions of 2002 dollars); Return is the annual return on the firm’s stock, defined as the value-weighted average of the returns across traded classes over the year; Divyield is the dividend yield, defined as the ratio of total dividend payout to stock price; Retvol is the volatility of stock returns, defined as the value-weighted average of the stock return volatility across traded classes using monthly stock returns over the prior year; Turnover is the share turnover ratio, defined as the value-weighted average of the ratio of the trading volume to the number of shares outstanding at the end of the previous year across all traded classes; M/B is the market-to-book ratio, defined as the market value of assets divided by book value of assets; Leverage is financial leverage, defined as the ratio of total debt to the market value of assets; Firmage is firm age, defined as the number of years since the firm first appears in CRSP; Price is the share price, defined as the value-weighted average of the stock price across traded classes at the end of the year (in 2002 dollars); S&P500 is an S&P 500 membership dummy, which equals one if the firm is in the S&P 500 Index, and zero otherwise; #Analysts is analyst coverage, defined as the number of IBES analysts covering the firm. The control variables are omitted for brevity. Panel A reports the coefficients on the dual-class status dummy from pooled OLS regressions which include year dummies and 48 Fama-French industry dummies. The standard errors are adjusted for the clustering of observations at the firm level. Panel B reports the coefficients on the dual-class status dummy from Fama-MacBeth regressions with Newey-West standard errors based on five lags. Standard errors are given in brackets. *, **, and *** indicate significance at the 10%, 5%, and 1% levels, respectively.

Panel A. Pooled OLS Regressions with Clustered Standard Errors

(1) Institutional Ownership

(2) Banks trust departments

(3) Insurance companies

(4) Investment companies

(5) Indep. inv. advisors

(6) Other

institutions

Dual -3.295*** -0.199 -0.464** -0.453 -1.853*** -0.352** [0.979] [0.294] [0.186] [0.340] [0.586] [0.139]

Includes all the controls in Tables IV and V # of obs. 5388 5388 5388 5388 5388 5388 Adjusted R2 0.423 0.251 0.134 0.349 0.269 0.285

Panel B. Fama-MacBeth Regressions with Newey-West Standard Errors

(1) Institutional Ownership

(2) Banks trust departments

(3) Insurance companies

(4) Investment companies

(5) Indep. inv. advisors

(6) Other

institutions

Dual -3.295*** -0.220 -0.486*** -0.408*** -1.768** -0.430** [0.622] [0.125] [0.032] [0.094] [0.588] [0.155]

Includes all the controls in Tables IV and V # of obs. 5388 5388 5388 5388 5388 5388

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