IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/irvfin/v3y2002i2p71-103.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Corporate Governance in Asia: A Survey

Author

Listed:
  • Stijn Claessens
  • Joseph P. H. Fan

Abstract

Corporate governance has received much attention in recent years, partly due to the Asian financial crisis. We review the literature on corporate governance issues in Asia to develop region‐specific and general lessons. Much attention has been given to poor corporate sector performance, but most studies do not suggest that Asian firms were badly run. The literature does confirm the limited protection of minority rights in Asia, allowing controlling shareholders to expropriate minority shareholders. Agency problems have been exacerbated by low corporate transparency, associated with rent‐seeking and relationship‐based transactions, extensive group structures and diversification, and risky financial structures. The controlling shareholder bears some of agency costs in the form of share price discounts and expenditures on monitoring, bonding and reputation building. The Asian financial crisis further showed that conventional and alternative corporate governance mechanisms can have limited effectiveness in systems with weak institutions and poor property rights. Overall, the understanding of the determinants of firm organizational structures, corporate governance practices and outcomes remains limited, however.

Suggested Citation

  • Stijn Claessens & Joseph P. H. Fan, 2002. "Corporate Governance in Asia: A Survey," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 3(2), pages 71-103, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:irvfin:v:3:y:2002:i:2:p:71-103
    DOI: 10.1111/1468-2443.00034
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2443.00034
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1468-2443.00034?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ferri, Giovanni & Tae Soo Kang & In-June Kim, 2001. "The value of relationship banking during financial crises : evidence from the Republic of Korea," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2553, The World Bank.
    2. Acemoglu, Daron & Johnson, Simon & Robinson, James & Thaicharoen, Yunyong, 2003. "Institutional causes, macroeconomic symptoms: volatility, crises and growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 49-123, January.
    3. Harvey, Campbell R. & Lins, Karl V. & Roper, Andrew H., 2004. "The effect of capital structure when expected agency costs are extreme," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 3-30, October.
    4. Claessens, Stijn & Fan, Joseph P.H. & Lang, Larry H.P., 2006. "The benefits and costs of group affiliation: Evidence from East Asia," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 1-26, March.
    5. Paul Gompers & Joy Ishii & Andrew Metrick, 2003. "Corporate Governance and Equity Prices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 107-156.
    6. Stijn Claessens & Leora F. Klapper, 2005. "Bankruptcy around the World: Explanations of Its Relative Use," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 7(1), pages 253-283.
    7. Suto, Megumi & 首藤, 惠 & ストウ, メグミ, 2001. "Capital Structure and Investment Behaviour of Malaysian Firms in the 1990s: A Study of Corporate Governance before the Crisis," CEI Working Paper Series 2001-9, Center for Economic Institutions, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    8. Charumilind, Chutatong & Kali, Raja & Wiwattanakantang, Yupana & ウィワッタナカンタン, ユパナ, 2002. "Crony Lending: Thailand before the Financial Crisis," CEI Working Paper Series 2002-4, Center for Economic Institutions, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Art Durnev & Sergei Guriev, 2007. "The Resource Curse: A Corporate Transparency Channel," Working Papers w0108, Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR).
    2. Cella, Cristina, 2020. "Institutional investors and corporate investment," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 32(C).
    3. He, Qing & Lu, Liping & Ongena, Steven, 2015. "Who gains from credit granted between firms? Evidence from inter-corporate loan announcements made in China," BOFIT Discussion Papers 1/2015, Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies (BOFIT).
    4. Reisel, Natalia, 2014. "On the value of restrictive covenants: Empirical investigation of public bond issues," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 251-268.
    5. Lel, Ugur & Miller, Darius, 2019. "The labor market for directors and externalities in corporate governance: Evidence from the international labor market," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1).
    6. Kose John & Yuanzhi Li & Jiaren Pang, 2017. "Does Corporate Governance Matter More for High Financial Slack Firms?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(6), pages 1872-1891, June.
    7. Durnev, Art & Fauver, Larry, 2008. "Stealing from Thieves: Firm Governance and Performance when States are Predatory," CEI Working Paper Series 2008-12, Center for Economic Institutions, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    8. Martin Holmén & Peter Högfeldt, 2009. "Pyramidal Discounts: Tunneling or Overinvestment?," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 9(1‐2), pages 133-175, March.
    9. Thomas J.Flavin & Abhinav Goyal & Thomas O'Connor, 2020. "Role of corporate governance and lifecycle in determining payout precommitment in an emerging economy," Economics Department Working Paper Series n297-20.pdf, Department of Economics, National University of Ireland - Maynooth.
    10. Randall Morck & Bernard Yeung, 2009. "Never Waste a Good Crisis: An Historical Perspective on Comparative Corporate Governance," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 145-179, November.
    11. Karl V. Lins & Francis E. Warnock, 2004. "Corporate governance and the shareholder base," International Finance Discussion Papers 816, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    12. Chi, Jianxin Daniel & Scott Lee, D., 2010. "The conditional nature of the value of corporate governance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 350-361, February.
    13. Jane Frances, 2004. "Institutions, Firms and Economic Growth," Treasury Working Paper Series 04/19, New Zealand Treasury.
    14. repec:zbw:bofitp:2015_001 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. He, Qing & Lu, Liping & Ongena, Steven, 2015. "Who gains from credit granted between firms? Evidence from inter-corporate loan announcements made in China," BOFIT Discussion Papers 1/2015, Bank of Finland, Institute for Economies in Transition.
    16. John, Kose & Knyazeva, Anzhela & Knyazeva, Diana, 2015. "Governance and Payout Precommitment," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 101-117.
    17. Chang, Ya-Kai & Chou, Robin K. & Huang, Tai-Hsin, 2014. "Corporate governance and the dynamics of capital structure: New evidence," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 374-385.
    18. Thomas Flavin & Abhinav Goyal & Thomas O'Connor, 2021. "Corporate governance, life cycle, and payout precommitment: An emerging market study," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 44(1), pages 179-209, April.
    19. Chrisostomos Florackis & Aydin Ozkan, 2009. "The Impact of Managerial Entrenchment on Agency Costs: An Empirical Investigation Using UK Panel Data," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 15(3), pages 497-528, June.
    20. Cella, Cristina, 2019. "Institutional Investors and Corporate Investment," Working Paper Series 373, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).
    21. Ha, Joohyung, 2019. "Agency costs of free cash flow and conditional conservatism," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 1-1.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:irvfin:v:3:y:2002:i:2:p:71-103. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=1369-412X .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.