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Corporate Stability and Economic Growth

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Author Info
Art Durnev ()
E. Han Kim ()
Abstract

Newly released data on corporate governance and disclosure practices reveal wide within-country variation, with the variation increasing as legal environment gets less investor friendly. This paper examines why firms practice high-quality governance when law does not require it; firm attributes that are related to the quality of governance; how the attributes interact with legal environment; and the relation between firm valuation and corporate governance. A simple model, in which a controlling shareholder trades off private benefits of diversion against costs that vary across countries and time, identifies three relevant firm attributes: investment opportunities, external financing, and ownership structure. Using firm-level governance and transparency data on 859 firms in 27 countries, we find that firms with greater growth opportunities, greater needs for external financing, and more concentrated cash flow rights practice higher-quality governance and disclose more. Moreover, firms that score higher in governance and transparency rankings are valued higher in the stock market. Equally important, all these relations are stronger in countries that are less investor friendly, demonstrating that firms do adapt to poor legal environments to establish efficient governance practices.

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Paper provided by William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan Stephen M. Ross Business School in its series William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series with number 554.

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Length: 65 pages
Date of creation: 01 Apr 2003
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Handle: RePEc:wdi:papers:2003-554

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Related research
Keywords: Corporate Governance Investment Opportunities External Financing Ownership Legal Environment Valuation

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Capital and Ownership Structure
K23 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Regulated Industries and Administrative Law

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Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Peter Hogfeldt, 2004. "The History and Politics of Corporate Ownership in Sweden," NBER Working Papers 10641, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Masaharu Hanazaki & Akiyoshi Horiuchi, 2003. "Have Banks Contributed to Efficient Management in Japan's Manufacturing?," CEI Working Paper Series 2003-22, Center for Economic Institutions, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University. [Downloadable!]
  3. Sanghoon Ahn, 2003. "Technology Upgrading with Learning Cost," CEI Working Paper Series 2003-21, Center for Economic Institutions, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University. [Downloadable!]
  4. Escribano, Alvaro & Guasch, J. Luis, 2005. "Assessing the impact of the investment climate on productivity using firm-level data : methodology and the cases of Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3621, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
  5. Bruno Dallago, 2003. "Comparative Economic Systems and the New Comparative Economics: Foes, Competitors, or Complementary?," CEI Working Paper Series 2003-24, Center for Economic Institutions, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University. [Downloadable!]
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