Concentrated ownership and corporate performance revisited: The case of shipping

This paper addresses the issue of ownership structure and corporate performance. It employs a sample of 107 internationally listed shipping firms (about 60% of the total) and examines their financial data and ownership concentration for the year 2009. Ownership is treated as an endogenous variable and GMM estimation is used incorporating the significant advance provided by Lewbel (1997). Empirical results suggest that concentrated ownership is positively and strongly associated with better firm performance in the shipping industry. Furthermore, this paper offers evidence on ownership concentration and shows that despite the different corporate governance settings, ownership structures are quite similar in shipping. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.