Ownership Structure and Firm Activities

The project takes its starting point in the large literature on ownership- and corporate governance which originally mainly focused on the separation between ownership and control. The limitations of present research are partly that it has focused on conditions in the US and partly that it has seldom been possible to link data on the internal structure of firms to relevant ownership data. This project creates a unique database where Swedish data on individuals and firms is linked to detailed ownership data. The project aims at studying how the ownership structure and those agent problems that might emerge affect firm behavior. For example: How does the ownership structure affect the wage level of employees? What are the effects of acquisitions of firms on the wages of different groups?