【正文】 ptured by those controlling the pany after the control contest and not shared among shareholders at large.” For example, the opportunity to engage in selfdealing and in taking corporate opportunities is regarded as private benefits of control. Furthermore, Shleifer and Vishny(1997) and La Porta et al.(2020) suggest that minority shareholder expropriation relates to insiders using the firm’s profits to their benefit rather than returning them to other shareholders. For example, insiders can simply steal or sell assets in the firms they control to another firm they own at below market prices. They can also divert corporate opportunities from the firm, appoint unqualified family members in managerial positions, or overpay executives. As such, ownership concentration can either mitigate or exacerbate agency problems and consequently may affect the position and effectiveness of the internal governance mechanisms. For example, to facilitate their opportunistic behavior large controlling shareholders may prefer boards and audit mittees that have fewer independent directors. Agency theorists also suggest independent directors can serve to protect minority shareholders against expropriation by large shareholders. Raheja(2020) hypothesizes that the optimal number of independent directors on the board increases as the private benefits to insiders increase. Indeed, Westphal(1998) suggests that since governance mechanisms in closelyheld firms are limited, minority shareholders potentially rely on their boards and their mittees to limit the controlling shareholder’s opportunism. Meanwhile, Anderson and Reeb(2020) argue that interests of minority shareholders are best protected when independent directors have greater power relative to extract rent for their private benefits are unlikely to assemble boards or audit mittees that can limit their control of firms, implying that a negative relation exists between ownership concentration and board and audit mittee independence. Empirical studies show that ownership concentration has a significant impact on board and audit mittee independence. For example, Anderson and Reeb(2020) report that family blockholders in large US firms prefer to limit independent director presence on the board. Kim, KitsabunnaratChatjuthamard, and Nofsinger(2020) find that ownership concentration and board independence are negatively related in 14 European countries. Cotter and Silvester(2020) report that board independence of Australian firms is associated with low management ownership and an absence of blockholders. SetiaAtmaja, Tanewski, and Skully(2020) indicate that family controlled firms have lower independent boards than nonfamily firms in Australia. Mendez and Garcia(2020) show the existence of lower audit mittee activity when the ownership structure is concentrated in the hands of large shareholders. Based on this empirical evidence, the following hypotheses to answer whether ownership concentration affects board and audit mittee independence (Research Question 1) is developed: Hypothesis 1a. Board independence is significantly lower among closelyheld than widelyheld firms in Australia. Hypothesis 1b. Audit mittee independence is significantly lower among closelyheld than widelyheld firms in Australia. Since ownership concentration can influence board and audit mittee independence, it can be argued that ownership concentration may moderate the role of board and audit mittee independence in corporate governance. Studies that examine the monitoring role of independent directors in firms with different ownership provide inconclusive evidence. For instance, Anderson and Reeb(2020) find that amon