The Economics of Corporate Ownership (2015)

Questions on the social welfare implications of different forms of firm ownership are often headline news these days. These questions are raised by recent global trends where fewer firms are listed on stock exchanges and that an increasingly large share of economic activity and investment takes place in privately held firms, many of which are family or private equity owned. Moreover, encouraging individuals to become owners of firms, i.e. promoting entrepreneurship, is on the agenda of many politicians. To advance research in this area, the Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN) is organizing an international two-day workshop on “The Economics of Corporate Ownership”. The workshop has two aims. The first is to advance research on the real economic implications of different corporate ownership forms and changes in corporate ownership. Topics of particular interest include research on how ownership and governance of firms affect society through interactions with the political process, financial markets, labor markets and product markets. The second aim is to enhance the interaction between researchers in economics and in finance interested in these issues.