Blockholdings in Europe: An international comparison

We preview empirical work by the European Corporate Governance Network on t he size of block shareholdings in Europe. The most salient finding is the e xtraordinarily high degree of concentration of shareholder voting power in Continental Europe relative to the U.S.A. and the U.K. Thus the relationshi p between large controlling shareholders and weak minority shareholders is at least as important to understand as the more commonly studied interface between management and dispersed shareholders. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B. V. All rights reserved.