Marc Steffen Rapp

• In this paper, we explore an extensive panel data set covering more than 4,000 listed firms in 16 European countries to study the effects of shareholder protection on ownership structure and firm performance. We document a negative firm-level correlation between shareholder protection and ownership concentration. Differentiating between shareholder types, we find that this pattern is mainly driven by strategic iestors. In contrast, we find a positive correlation between shareholder protection and block ownership of institutional iestors, in particular when we restrict the analysis to independent institutional iestors. Finally, we find that independent institutional iestors are positively associated with firm valuation as measured by Tobin’s Q. The opposite applies for strategic iestors. Overall, our results are consistent with the view that (i) high shareholder protection and (ii) limited ownership by strategic iestors make small iestors and iestors interested in security returns more confident in their iestments._x000D_ Keywords: Ownership structure, shareholder protection, institutional ownership, Europehttp://www.emeraldinsight.com/keyword/Europe?displaySummary=true