Public and Private Firm Ownership in the 21st Century: Financial Performance and Sustainable Considerations.

The corporate landscape of the twenty-first century is characterized by two important developments. First, private markets have expanded considerably, while public markets have become a less common funding venue for many firms. Second, firms are increasingly evaluated along dimensions that extend beyond financial performance, including sustainability-related considerations. These developments raise empirical challenges for corporate finance, as many relevant firms and dimensions of firm behavior are only imperfectly captured by conventional data and public disclosures.
This dissertation investigates these issues through the role of ownership and control. It examines how ownership structures relate to financial outcomes and sustainability considerations across public and private markets. To do so, the dissertation largely combines financial and ownership data with textual data from archived firm websites and crowdsourced employee reviews, while applying machine learning methods to analyze them.
The dissertation contains four empirical chapters. The first chapter constructs a Workplace Stress Index from employee-generated content and shows that higher workplace stress is associated with lower future operating performance, analyst forecast errors, and lower subsequent stock returns. The second chapter shows that employee satisfaction is higher in VC-backed firms but declines after VC exit, with employee narratives praising the supportive culture, growth environment, and HR practices. The third chapter shows that VC-backed firms disclose less ESG information than other private firms but gradually close this gap across financing rounds, with no evidence of strategic pre-transaction adjustments. The fourth chapter shows that, among funds with high dry powder near the end of the investment period, those that accelerate deployment undertake suboptimal deals and display lower fund performance. Together, the essays show that ownership and control are related not only to financial performance but also to employee-related outcomes, voluntary disclosure, and agency costs.