Studies have reported valuation discounts for publicly traded companies based in countries that provide weak legal protection for minority shareholders.1 Such discounts are often attributed to the ability of controlling shareholders to extract “private benefits” that come at the expense of minority shareholders. Without sufficient legal deterrents, controlling shareholders have both the incentive and the ability to transfer corporate resources to themselves for personal consumption or gain. These transfers take a number of forms, including related-party “tunneling” transactions as well as corporate perks and, in some cases, outright theft.

But under certain circumstances—notably, when their companies want to raise capital by selling shares—the controlling shareholders may face a stronger incentive to reduce this value discount by providing credible commitments to outside investors to forgo this diversion of corporate resources. Various commitment mechanisms have been proposed in the literature, including cross-listing on U.S. exchanges as well as general improvements in overall corporate governance systems.2 But another possible solution is more effective oversight of controlling shareholders by corporate boards.

We recently published a study that investigated the effects of appointing more independent directors on the value discounts of companies controlled by a dominant shareholder.3 Using biographical data on nearly 8000 directors of 799 closely held companies in 22 countries, we found a significant positive correlation between corporate value and the fraction of the board made up of independent directors. Moreover, we found this relation to be especially pronounced in countries that afford investors weak legal protection—countries where controlling shareholders presumably have then greatest opportunity to increase corporate values by submitting to greater oversight.

Thus, the findings of our study are consistent with the possibility that the appointment of directors with no ties to the controlling shareholder can be a powerful mechanism to reduce the threat of resource diversion and transfer of value from minority shareholders. But how reliable is this interpretation, given that the same controlling shareholders that have the power to appoint the board members also have the power—perhaps if they do too good a job—to dismiss them?

To address this issue, we performed several additional tests designed to detect the ability of independent directors to monitor the actions of the controlling shareholder. One such test revealed that 71% of independent directors in our sample sat on multiple corporate boards. We reasoned that multiple appointments are more likely to be a proxy for “reputational capital,” and that directors with multiple appointments should be less willing to jeopardize those reputations by proving to be ineffective monitors. As a second check on whether independent directors help reduce the threat of transfers of corporate resources, we also found that the frequency of related-party transactions was significantly lower in companies with larger fractions of independent directors, and that this reduced frequency was associated with higher corporate values.

A third set of tests investigated the possibility that an increase in the value of corporate shares would be most beneficial to controlling shareholders that plan either to issue equity on behalf of the firm or to sell equity on personal account. The tradeoff faced by such shareholders in these circumstances is between a higher value for their shares and reduced private control benefits. In other words, controlling shareholders are likely to appoint independent directors when their expected gains from higher share values outweigh their sacrifice of private benefits. Consistent with this argument, we found that the companies in our sample that issued equity had larger fractions of independent directors.

In the pages that follow, we explore each of the questions raised here in greater depth, report the relevant results of our recent study, and present representative case studies.

研究报告称，在对少数股东的法律保护薄弱的国家，上市公司的估值折扣。1 这种折扣通常归因于控股股东以牺牲少数股东为代价获取“私人利益”的能力。如果没有足够的法律威慑力，控股股东既有动机也有能力将公司资源转移到自己手中以供个人消费或谋取利益。这些转移采取多种形式，包括关联方“隧道”交易以及公司津贴，在某些情况下，还包括公然盗窃。

但在某些情况下——特别是当他们的公司想通过出售股票筹集资金时——控股股东可能面临更强烈的动机，通过向外部投资者提供可信的承诺来减少这种价值折扣，以放弃这种公司资源的转移。文献中提出了各种承诺机制，包括在美国交易所交叉上市以及整体公司治理体系的普遍改进。2 但另一种可能的解决方案是公司董事会对控股股东进行更有效的监督。

我们最近发表了一项研究，调查了任命更多独立董事对大股东控制的公司价值折扣的影响。 3 使用 22 个国家 799 家密切控股公司的近 8000 名董事的履历数据，我们发现两者之间存在显着正相关公司价值和董事会中独立董事的比例。此外，我们发现这种关系在为投资者提供薄弱法律保护的国家尤为明显——在这些国家，控股股东可能有最大的机会通过接受更严格的监督来增加公司价值。

因此，我们的研究结果与这样一种可能性是一致的，即任命与控股股东无关的董事可以成为减少少数股东资源转移和价值转移威胁的有力机制。但是，考虑到有权任命董事会成员的同一控股股东也有权——也许如果他们做得很好——解雇他们，这种解释有多可靠？

为了解决这个问题，我们进行了几项额外的测试，旨在检测独立董事监督控股股东行为的能力。一项此类测试显示，我们样本中 71% 的独立董事在多个公司董事会任职。我们推断，多次任命更有可能代表“声誉资本”，而多次任命的董事应该不太愿意因为被证明是无效的监督者而损害这些声誉。作为对独立董事是否有助于降低公司资源转移威胁的二次检验，我们还发现，独立董事比例较高的公司的关联方交易频率明显较低，而且这种频率降低与较高的关联方交易相关。企业价值观。

第三组测试调查了公司股票价值增加对计划代表公司发行股权或以个人账户出售股权的控股股东最有利的可能性。在这些情况下，这些股东面临的权衡是在他们的股票价值更高和私人控制利益减少之间。换句话说，当控股股东从更高的股票价值中获得的预期收益超过他们牺牲的私人利益时，他们可能会任命独立董事。与这一论点一致，我们发现我们样本中发行股票的公司拥有更大比例的独立董事。

在接下来的几页中，我们将更深入地探讨这里提出的每一个问题，报告我们最近研究的相关结果，并展示有代表性的案例研究。