Ownership structure and voluntary disclosures: the case of French-listed firms

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between ownership structure and voluntary earnings disclosures under high ownership concentration of French-listed firms. The findings show that French managers are less likely to make voluntary disclosures when they are controlled by a large shareholder or by a family, suggesting that low legal protection leads to expropriation of minority shareholders. The results also show that the proportion of foreign institutional investors in capital is likely to mitigate this relationship since institutional investors signal good minority shareholders’ protection to the market.