Google's Recent Stock Split and the Modigliani-Miller Theorem

Modern economics has a few repeated themes;  "no free lunch", "Coase Theorem", "Time Consistency", "Ricardian Equivalence", "Rotten Kid Theorem", and the Modigliani-Miller Theorem.  This last theorem posits that how you cut up a pie into pieces doesn't affect the size of a pie. A pizza cut into 4 slices and the same pizza cut into 8 slices are the same pizza.   A recent NY Times piece by Andrew Ross Sorkin argues that Google doesn't believe this.  In recent years the price of a Google share has grown very high and Larry Page has pushed through a 2 to 1 stock split.

Sorkin makes a really nice Mancur Olson point when he posits that Google is pursuing this stock split to diffuse the ownership of the firm.  If the stock is more "affordable" then more little guys like me will buy it and institutional investors will own a smaller %. If Larry Page and his team own 40% of the Google stock and the remaining 60% is broadly owned then he can pursue the initiatives he wants without any fear of a shareholder rebellion or significant oversight.  Recall that Olson stressed that in pressure group competition that the small number of tightly organized interests will win the fight against a large number of smaller opponents who face high transaction costs from working with each other.

Have corporate finance researchers studied this topic?  Do stock splits give more power to the elites who run the firms?  When is this bad?  When is the important role of institutional investors in monitoring the CEO have their % of stock watered down do they invest less effort in monitoring the firm?