Research

Current research is mainly in the following areas.
Voting power analysis, with special reference to better understanding weighted voting systems through the use of power indices. This is an emerging field. I have made substantial original contributions to the field both in methodology and in application. I have analysed voting power in internatonal organisations which use weighted voting systems, particularly the IMF and the European Union council of Ministers.


Share ownership and corporate governance. I have studied voting power of shareholder blocs and shown that many large companies are effectively controlled by a small number of shareholders, holding a minority of voting shares, voting as a bloc. I have also recently studied the incentives of many leading investors to be active in corporate governance by voting their shares and in other ways. The research suggests that shareholders can make substantial net gains from improvements in the performance of their portfolio companies even when their holdings represent only a small fraction of the equity, in contrast to the conventional view.

More on Current Research Interests and Projects

Publications

Other affiliations:

Director of the Voting Power and Procedures programme and an External Associate member of the Centre for the Philosophy of Natural and Social Science at LSE.

Research Associate of the Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation, Warwick.

Power Indices Computer Algorithms

Click here to access the power indices analysis web pages, giving use of the algorithms for voting power analysis that have been developed by Dennis Leech. These web pages allow the user to carry out power index calculations on-line in a web page.

Click Here.