We investigate the role of ownership structure and investor protection in postprivatization corporate governance. We find that the government relinquishes control over time, mainly to the benefit of local institutions and foreign investors. We also show that private ownership tends to...

This paper seeks to provide an answer to the following question: When and how does privatization work? Using a unique sample of 189 firms headquartered in 32 developing countries, we document a significant increase in profitability, efficiency, investment and output. Next, using univariate...

We investigate the impact of government control and political characteristics of the privatizing government on the cost of equity of newly privatized firms. Using cost of equity estimates implied in current stock prices and analysts' earnings forecasts for a sample of 126 privatized firms from...

We study the determinants of a firm's decision to issue one of the four available ADR programs (Level I, Level II, Level III, and Rule 144A). We find that the firm's attributes (size, income, asset growth, leverage, privatization, ownership structure, and country-of-origin) and the firm's...

This paper investigates the link between privatization and emerging market sovereign bond spreads. We conjecture that the way privatization is implemented may help to build a favorable market sentiment by gradually building investor confidence, which should then lead to a lower required...

<heading id="h1" level="1" implicit="yes" format="display">Abstract</heading>We analyze the effect of privatization on the quality of legal institutions of governance. Our findings suggest that large-scale privatization (in terms of progress and volume) increases the risk of corruption in developing countries but has no effect on the legal institutions of...

In this study, we investigate the short run effect of the October 30th, 1995 Quebec referendum on the common stock returns of Quebec firms. Our results show that the uncertainty surrounding the referendum outcome had an impact on stock returns of Quebec firms. We also find that the effect of the...

In this paper, we examine under which conditions privatization is an effective means to develop local stock markets for a panel of 61 countries over the last twenty four years. By addressing the endogeneity between privatization and stock market development, we show for the 1980-98 period that...