Does the owner of a share of stock in Mexico have the same rights as one in Germany or India? Is a creditor in Italy as well protected as one in Switzerland? Do laws protecting investors differ among countries in systematic ways? Are they sufficiently enforced everywhere? And if there are...

Critics of privatization often argue that its benefits come at a high cost to society. The authors test the validity of this criticism for Mexico's privatization program, one of the world's largest case-by-case programs. Assessing the performance of newly privatized firms in such areas as...