Common Ownership Theory Content

Ambitious policymakers from both big US political parties are looking to make hay of the failed idea that retail investment funds hold too much stock in our largest companies. They are hoping to advance headline-grabbing policy agendas that would ultimately harm everyday American...

How strong is the empirical evidence supporting the theory of common ownership? Proponents believe that common ownership poses anticompetitive concerns, but others have challenged the hypothesis and the statistical methods used to test the hypothesis, data errors, and lack of evidence...

November 4, 2019 Mr. Bilal Sayyed Director Office of Policy Planning Federal Trade Commission 600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20580 Re: Competition and Consumer Protection in the 21st Century Hearings, Hearing Number Eight (Docket ID: FTC-2018-0107) Dear Mr. Sayyed: The...

• • • ICI Viewpoints DECEMBER 12, 2018 Mutual Funds: Rated E for Everyone BY SARAH HOLDEN Investing is subject to many misconceptions, including the notion that only wealthy households own mutual funds. As US households’ ownership of mutual funds has grown over the past four decades...

In his first public remarks as a member of the Federal Trade Commission, Commissioner Noah Joshua Phillips tackled what he called "the common ownership story"—and concluded that "this 'economic blockbuster' seems a little light on plot." And like many other experts, Commissioner...

In a new paper, scholars Thomas A. Lambert and Michael E. Sykuta find that proponents of the common ownership hypothesis don't understand—or even attempt to consider—the actual economic interests and incentives of asset managers and their fund clients....

Economists and legal scholars have issued pointed critiques and empirical rebuttals of the "common ownership" hypothesis—the notion that institutional investors holding small, non-controlling stakes in competing companies in concentrated industries decrease competition and raise...

August 20, 2018 Mr. Donald S. Clark Secretary Federal Trade Commission Office of the Secretary 600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Suite CC–5610 (Annex C) Washington, DC 20580 Re: Competition and Consumer Protection in the 21st Century Hearings (Project Number P181201) Dear Mr. Clark: The...