Politisch-institutionelle Determinanten aktionärsorientierter Reformen

This text is a preliminary study on the political-institutional determinants of shareholder oriented reforms in 21 OECD countries. I analyse stock and flow data on the development of stock market capitalization and on the rights of minority shareholders (La Porta et al. index) between 1990 and 2000 respective 2002. Six groups of dependent variables are distinguished: (1) economic, (2) structural, (3) cultural variables; (4) the political composition of governments; (5) institutions of consociational democracy and (6) labor relations. The analysis shows that there is a strong empirical relationship between shareholder oriented reforms and the importance of private pension schemes. In 1990, high shareholder protection was typical for countries with conservative and liberal governments, while low shareholder protection was a particular feature of catholic countries. This empirical relationship declined during the 1990s. As a consequence of weak reforms in the Nordic countries, minority shareholder protection in the year 2000 was comparatively low in countries governed by Social Democratic parties. Reforms went further in pluralist rather than corporatist countries. I use these preliminary results to identify further need for research. Most urgently, more comparative indexes on corporate governance features - such as takeover regulation and shareholder democracy - need to be developed.