Vote Trading and Information Aggregation

Abstract

ABSTRACT The standard analysis of corporate governance assumes that shareholders vote in ratios that firms choose, such as one share‐one vote. However, if the cost of unbundling and trading votes is sufficiently low, then shareholders choose the ratios. We document an active market for votes within the U.S. equity loan market, where the average vote sells for zero. We hypothesize that asymmetric information motivates the vote trade and find support in the cross section. More trading occurs for higher‐spread and worse‐performing firms, especially when voting is close. Vote trading corresponds to support for shareholder proposals and opposition to management proposals.