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In this paper we address the question whether insider ownership affects corporate performance. Evidence coming from studies dealing with Anglo-Saxon countries is rather inconclusive, especially because it seems that results are significantly affected by endogeneity. Economically, this is due to the fact that in these countries insider ownership seems to be mainly driven by management's compensation contracts. We argue that Germany is different in this regard, as insider ownership often is related to family control, stock-based compensation is less widespread and the market for corporate control is less developed. Starting from this presumption our data allows to make an unbiased observation as to whether insider ownership affects firm performance. Using a pooled data set of 648 firm observations for the years 2003 and 1998 we find evidence for a positive and significant relationship between corporate performance as measured by stock price performance, market-to-book ratio and return on assets and insider ownership. This relationship seems to be rather robust, even if we account for endogeneity by applying a 2SLS regression approach. Moreover, we also find outside block ownership as well as more concentrated insider ownership to have a positive impact on corporate performance. Overall the results indicate that ownership structure might be an important variable explaining the long term value creation in the corporate sector.

It is well-known from US-related studies that investors systematically overreact to accrual-based accounting information. We address the question to what extent this accrual anomaly is related to different accounting standards. We provide empirical evidence that the accrual anomaly is also present in Germany. However, this anomaly has become particularly important after the year 2000 and cannot be detected for firms presenting their financial statements under German GAAP. It is argued that introducing true and fair view accounting, like IFRS, that relies on difficult-to-verify information, may not be suitable to improve accounting information quality in the context of a weak corporate governance system.

This paper presents a cash flow based analysis of the return and risk characteristics of European Private Equity Funds. For that purpose a comprehensive data set has been provided by Thomson Venture Economics. We document the typical time pattern of cash flows for European private equity funds. Specifically, it is recorded that the average European private equity fund draws down 23% of total committed capital on the vintage date; within the first three years 60% of the total commitment is draw down. It turned out that limited partners on average get back the money invested slightly after 7 years. Over the time period from 1980 to June 2003, we calculate various performance measures. For that purpose we use only liquidated funds or funds with a small residual net asset value. Under this restriction one specific data set consists of 200 funds. We document a cash flow based IRR of 12.7% and an average excess-IRR of 4.5% relative to the MSCI Europe equity index. In order to circumvent the problems associated with the IRR-approach we focus on the alternative public market equivalent approach. There it is assumed that cash flows generated by a private equity fund are reinvested in a public market benchmark index. We record an average PME of 0.96 and a value-weighted average PME of 1.04. Based on the PME-approach we develop a viable methodology to estimate the return and risk characteristics of European private equity funds and the correlation structure to public markets. As a benchmark index we used the MSCI Europe Equity Index as well as the J.P.Morgan Government Bond Index. Over the period 1980-2003 private equity funds generated an overperformance with respect to the bond index and two of our three samples an underperformance with respect to the equity index. Over the period 1989-2003 private equity funds generated an overperformance with respect to both indexes. Finally, we analyze to what extent performance measures are associated with specific funds characteristics, like size, payback period and vintage year, respectively. While the payback period and the vintage year seem to have a statistically significant influence on a fund's performance, the results with respect to size are inconclusive.