Shareholder Entitlement, Primacy and Empowerment
42 Pages Posted: 12 May 2010 Last revised: 4 Aug 2010
Date Written: May 12, 2010
Abstract
My purpose in this paper is to examine three distinct approaches to the notion that companies should be run in the interests of shareholders; shareholder entitlement, shareholder primacy, and shareholder empowerment. I show how these ideologies were a response to a particular set of political and economic developments using material on the United Kingdom, European Union and the United States. I show the negative impact of shareholder primacy and argue that empowering shareholders – particularly where the only shareholders with significant economic power are institutions – is a retrograde and populist step that will merely amplify the damage caused by shareholder primacy governance.
Keywords: Corporate Governance, Shareholders, Shareholder Primacy, Corporate Law
JEL Classification: B30, B31, K1, K30, F23, G30, K20, L20, L50
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