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by prickledpear 2684 days ago
These mutual funds and ETFs actively participate in corporate governance, and the overlapping ownership of most stocks in the market is a very underrated problem.

Economists have found evidence that as ownership concentration increases, firms act more like a monopoly.

See this paper for one example in the airline industry: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jofi.12698

1 comments

Participating in corporate governance and actively forming corporate strategy is a very different issue. And to my knowledge, ETFs and mutual funds do not participate in any meaningful way in management, i.e. they do not act as activist investors.
>And to my knowledge, ETFs and mutual funds do not participate in any meaningful way in management, i.e. they do not act as activist investors.

There's been a trend towards more activism with passive indexes. One example with Blackrock's passive fund:

https://www.afr.com/business/larry-fink-says-blackrock-will-...