Ownership structure,monitoring, and market value of companies: evidence from an unusual privatization mode

This study analyses the impact of ownership structure and market liquidity on company value. We investigate different aspects of ownership: the risk of political interference, private investors vs. the state acting as influential blockholders, and preferential political treatment of companies. Using a unique dataset of Polish partial privatizations initiated by shares transfers to entities under limited government influence, we find that government divestments can enhance company value, due to reduction in risk of political interference. A potential increase in the liquidity of trades in transferred companies’ shares also boosts their market value. On the other hand, an increased likelihood of the emergence of private blockholders able to expropriate minority shareholders reduces the firm’s market value. Our results support the political view of privatization: governments have objectives different to profit maximization, which leads to suboptimal investment from this point of view and lower market value of companies. We also develop a model to empirically distinguish between different aspects of ownership on company value.     

所有权类型的激励效果与国有资产布局的关系

从不同所有权类型的激励效果出发,在社会福利最大化的约束下,研究了私有产权与国有产权在产业间的配置问题。基本结论如下:私有制下企业经理工作努力水平、创新投资、成本降低投资高于国有制下的水平,但私有制下的公共投资低于国有制下的水平:就某一产业来说,从社会整体效益来看,存在国有产权与私有产权的权衡问题;具体而言,当产业外部收益较大且产业重要程度较高时,应采取国有所有权形式,否则应采取私有所有权形式。     

Bargaining, Bonding, and Partial Ownership

This article provides a theory of interfirm partial ownership. We consider a setting in which an upstream firm can make two alternative types of investment: either specific investment that only a particular downstream firm can use or general investment that any downstream firm is capable of using. When the benefits from specific and general investments are both stochastic, equity participation by the downstream firm in the upstream firm can lead to more efficient outcomes than take-or-pay contracts. The optimal ownership stake of the downstream firm is less than 50 percent under a natural assumption about relative bargaining power.     

Ownership, institutions, and capital structure: Evidence from China

We employ a unique data set to explore the role of ownership structure and institutional development in debt financing of non-publicly traded Chinese firms. We show that state ownership is positively associated with leverage and firms’ access to long-term debt, while foreign ownership is negatively associated with all measures of leverage. Surprisingly, firms in better developed regions are associated with reduced access to long-term debt, suggesting the availability of alternative financing channels and the tightening of the lending standards under the on-going banking reform. The combination of ownership structures and institutions explains up to 6% of the total variation in firms’ leverage decisions, while firm characteristics alone explain no more than 8% of the variation. Further, we show that non-state-owned firms tend to have lower total and short-term debt than their state-owned counterparts in less developed regions. Finally, we show that state-owned firms’ easy access to long-term debt is positively associated with long-term investment and negatively associated with firm performance.     

Ownership transformation,firm performance and manufacturing growth in China

Many commentators and researchers have attributed the manufacturing success in China to its ownership reforms. Using a micro database from the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics, this paper documents and quantifies this development. With systematic and robust analyses, it shows that the development of private ownership indeed played an essential role in improving firm performance and the allocation and utilization of production resources in the Chinese manufacturing sector. In addition, the paper estimates the contributions of firms under different ownership to manufacturing growth, showing that the development of private ownership was the driving force of manufacturing growth in China. The strong credible evidence has important policy implications for further maintaining sustainable development in China.     

Core competencies,matching and the structure of foreign direct investment

We develop a matching model of foreign direct investment to study how multinational firms choose between greenfield investment, acquisitions and joint ownership. Firms must invest in a continuum of tasks to bring a product to market. Each firm possesses a core competency in the task space, but the firms are otherwise identical. For acquisitions and joint ownership, a multinational enterprise (MNE) must match with a local partner that may provide complementary expertise within the task space. However, under joint ownership, investment in tasks is shared by multiple owners and, hence, is subject to a holdup problem that varies with contract intensity. In equilibrium, ex ante identical multinationals enter the local matching market, and, ex post, three different types of heterogeneous firms arise. Specifically, the worst matches are forgone and the MNEs invest greenfield; the middle matches operate under joint ownership; and the best matches integrate via full acquisition. We link the firm‐level model to cross‐country and industry predictions and find that a greater share of full acquisitions occur between more proximate markets, in hosts with greater revenue potential and within contract‐intensive industries. Using data on partial and full acquisitions across industries and countries, we find robust support for these predictions.     

CONTROL ALLOCATION,REVENUE SHARING,AND JOINT OWNERSHIP*

This article develops a two‐period double moral hazard model with incomplete contracting to explore the implication of a possible adverse effect of unilateral control on the optimal revenue sharing and control allocation in a joint venture. We identify conditions under which joint ownership and control become optimal when unilateral control gives the controlling party opportunities to inefficiently extract private benefits at the expense of the joint revenue. Moreover, this adverse consequence of control may also lead to the separation of share ownership and control, i.e., it may be optimal for the minority owner to have the control rights.     

Ownership structure,corporate governance,and enterprise performance: Empirical results for ukraine

This paper examines the effect of ownership structure on corporate governance and performance of privatized enterprises in transition. The data are taken from a survey conducted in 2001 on 202 medium and large firms in Ukraine for the period 1998–2000. The ownership structure is measured by the percentage of shares held by each type of owner (state, managers, workers, Ukrainian concentrated outsiders, foreign concentrated owners, and stake-holding shareholders). Performance is measured by sales per employee. Regression analysis is used to test the hypothesis that concentrated outside ownership influences performance positively and to detect non-linear effects of ownership variables on performance. In contrast, with important previous studies on enterprise restructuring in Ukraine [Estrin and Rosevear, 1999], significant ownership effects on performance are found. Insider ownership (being a special case of stakeholding ownership) is found to have a significant non-linear effect on performance—positive within a lower range but negative from a threshold close to majority ownership onwards. In general, Ukrainian outside owners do not have a significant effect on performance. However, stakeholding ownership by customers affect sale prices and performance negatively. The most robust results are obtained for the effects of concentrated foreign ownership, both for levels of the respective variables in each year and for changes from one year to the other. The impact of foreign ownership on performance is significantly non-linear: its effect is positive only up to a level that falls short of majority ownership. It is concluded that this non-linearity is due to an institutional environment still adverse to foreign direct investment.Support from Alexander-von-Humboldt Foundation is gratefully acknowledged.     

Employee share ownership in a unionised duopoly

Profit sharing schemes have been analysed assuming Cournot competition and decentralised wage negotiations, and it has been found that firms share profits in equilibrium. This paper analyses a different remuneration system: employee share ownership. We find that whether firms choose to share ownership or not depends on both the type of competition in the product market and the way in which workers organise to negotiate wages. If wage setting is decentralised, under duopolistic Cournot competition both firms share ownership. If wage setting is centralised, only one firm shares ownership if the degree to which goods are substitutes takes an intermediate value; otherwise, the two firms share ownership. In this case, if the union sets the same wage for all workers neither firm shares ownership. Therefore, centralised wage setting discourages share ownership. Finally, under Bertrand competition neither firm shares ownership regardless of how workers are organised to negotiate wages.     

Industry and Labour: Class Struggle at Work and Monopoly Capitalism; Social Standing in America: New Dimensions of Class; Class Structure and Social Mobility in Poland

A very well-established economic literature maintains that state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are inefficient as compared to privately owned ones (POEs). In this paper, I argue that SOEs' inefficiency is not due to state ownership per se, but is rather caused conditions other than ownership, to which SOEs often — though not necessarily always — relate. In particular, I focus on dynamic efficiency — specifically, the production of technological innovation — of SOEs in manufacturing industries, where SOEs should contend with POEs in a competitive environment. I suggest that targeted measures, which are aimed at increasing managers' commitment to long-term investment strategies and at reducing corruption and political interference — albeit complex and difficult to implement — can be much more (positively) impactful on long-run technical progress than the simple privatization of companies. This leaves room for exploration and implementation of policies that might reconcile state ownership and market competition in industrial sectors.     

Development Policy Lending, Conditionality, and Ownership: A Dynamic Agency Model Perspective

Is the World Bank's Development Policy Lending likely to enhance ownership and have greater effectiveness than structural adjustment? We specify a dynamic common agency model in which a government considering economic reform faces domestic opposition from interest groups. The dynamic specification, which is original in the context of policy reforms supported by the International Financial Institutions (IFIs), is essential to allow the strength of special interest groups to arise endogenously during the reform process. We show that conditionality may alter the country's political equilibrium and lead to higher social welfare. However, under certain circumstances which depend on country‐specific circumstances, conditional assistance could lead to lower social welfare. Thus, for conditionality not to be inconsistent with ownership, its design must be appropriate to the country circumstances and directly affect the domestic political constraint.     

公司最优股权结构分析

公司股权结构是各利益方相互博弈的结果。本文从企业融资渠道的角度出发,考虑在负债条件下的企业最优股权结构的确定。通过文献回顾股权与绩效之间的关系,分析出股权集中度对公司绩效影响的研究大体分为三大类:股权集中度与公司绩效正相关、不相关以及股权的分散性与公司绩效呈正相关关系;同时认为股权结构的内生性问题与绩效也有一定的显著性影响。本文采用Pagano和Roell(1988)提出的股权结构的形成模型,同时本文将在外部融资中加入债务融资进行分析。理论分析表明,企业的最优股权结构受企业债务融资决策的影响。在考虑债务融资的情形下,股东的持股比例与企业的价值是相关的,也就是说,企业的股权结构可能是内生的,它会随着企业经营境况的改变而改变,是股东间博弈的结果。     

MFN vs Tariff Discrimination in the Presence of Cross Ownership

We develop a three‐country two‐firm model to examine the superiority of most favored nation (MFN) vs tariff discrimination in global welfare by taking into account the cross ownership between exporters. We obtain several interesting results as follows. First, given cross ownership of financial interests and linear demand, the government of the importing country will impose a lower (higher) tariff on the low‐cost (high‐cost) firm and the global welfare under tariff discrimination will be higher than that under MFN, regardless of whether the mode of competition is Cournot or Bertrand competition, when the magnitude of cross ownership is relatively large compared with the cost difference. Second, given the cross ownership of corporate control and linear demand, the global welfare under tariff discrimination will be identical to that under MFN.     

Control rights, pyramids, and the measurement of ownership concentration

The recent corporate governance literature has emphasised the distinction between control and cash-flow rights but has disregarded measurement issues. Control rights may be measured by immediate shareholder votes, the voting rights as traced through ownership chains, or voting power indices that may or may not trace ownership through chains. We compare the ability of various measures to identify the effects of ownership concentration on share valuation using a German panel data set. The widely used weakest-link principle does not perform well in this comparison. Furthermore, measures that trace control through ownership chains do not outperform those that rely on immediate ownership, thus questioning the role of pyramids in the separation of control and cash-flow rights. The paper emphasises that there is a distinction between these two aspects of ownership even without pyramids or preferred stock, identification of which requires measures that, like the Shapley–Shubik index, do not simply equate control rights with voting rights.     

The Performance of Public and Private Enterprise under Conditions of Active and Passive Ownership and Competition and Monopoly

Privatisation is driven by the belief that public ownership is cost inefficient, in particular under monopoly. However, some theoretical and empirical studies have questioned whether privatisation will necessarily lead to efficiency gains. This paper focuses on the impact of ownership when owners can be either active or passive. Active owners decide on output, whereas passive owners delegate this decision to a risk-averse manager. It turns out that managerial slack as reflected in the marginal costs will actually be the same or higher in a private monopoly than under public ownership. The impact of entry is theoretically ambiguous, but an increased number of firms in an oligopoly may lead to lower efficiency.     

所有制起源及其变迁致因新探

新制度经济学认为稀缺产生产权的认识是肤浅的;传统政治经济学提出社会化大生产要求建立社会公有制,认为生产工具的性质决定所有制的性质和形式无法解释诸多实际中的所有制现象。文章认为,在资源稀缺前提下之所以要求建立所有制,概由人的生存与发展需求所使然,因此,应以人的需求的满足为准则来评判和选择特定社会制度性质的所有制。     

不充分外部竞争环境下企业股权结构与创新关系再审视

在探究不充分竞争外部环境影响企业创新机理的基础上，结合交易成本、委托代理等理论重新审视股权类型多样化、股权集中度、企业规模与年龄对企业创新的影响，并以2014-2015年861家上市企业及2015-2016年936家上市企业组成的非平衡删失面板数据为样本，验证了面板Tobit模型。结果表明：股权集中度与股权类型多样化显著影响企业创新绩效；企业创新绩效与股权类型多样化显著正相关，与股权集中度呈倒U型关系；与股权集中度相比，股权类型多样化比股权集中度更能影响企业创新绩效；企业规模与年龄对企业创新绩效具有显著正向影响，支持了“创新累积假说”。在外部环境竞争不充分情况下，股权类型多样化与股权集中度组合是企业获得互补性创新资源的重要途径，对于降低交易成本、缓解委托代理冲突与委托-委托冲突具有重要意义，国有企业实施混合所有制改革是做大做强的有效途径之一。     

Board structure,ownership, and financial distress in banking firms

This investigation pursues a new direction in the analysis of financial distress in banking firms. The research was inspired by recent research on corporate governance and the need to understand the internal processes behind the financial decisions that result in bank failures. The analysis examined the relationship between the ownership and structure of the board of directors and the internal control mechanism that influences the survival of the firm. The following aspects of ownership and governance are investigated: ownership by directors and officers, ownership by the CEO, number of directors, percentage of inside directors, and CEO duality. The influence of board structure and ownership on the probability of financial distress was explored with a sample of approximately 300 banking firms. The empirical tests indicated a lower probability of financial distress when one person is both the CEO and chairman of the board, but the other factors did not have a significant effect.     

农地制度:所有权问题还是委托-代理问题?

村委会作为农村基层唯一合乎法定体制的正规制度安排,承担着政府代理人、集体产权代理人、社区管理者相互矛盾冲突的三项职能。这一制度设计缺陷,引发了对土地集体所有、家庭经营制度的深入探讨。本文通过对土地职能、村委会角色与职能冲突及集体所有制问题的讨论,提出了土地集体所有家庭经营制度的治理结构问题,认为集体所有是均分土地的基本前提,而土地均分又是保障“人人有饭吃”的制度基础。在社会保障制度不完善的条件下,土地集体所有是既有的现实选择,这就使集体所有治理结构中存在的委托—代理关系,随着农户经济结构的转型正成为农村改革与发展面临的新问题。     

Ownership structure,governance, and innovation

This paper tests the impact of firms׳ ownership structure on innovation in a context featuring pronounced ownership concentration and conflicts between large and minority shareholders. Using data for 20,000 Italian manufacturers, and accounting for the possible endogeneity of ownership levels, we find that ownership concentration negatively affects innovation, especially by reducing R&D effort. Conflicts between large and minority shareholders appear to be a determinant of this effect. Moreover, risk aversion induced by lack of diversification exacerbates large shareholders׳ reluctance to innovate. Family owners support innovation more than financial institutions, but the benefits of financial institutions increase with their equity stakes.