In this paper we analyze the evolution of firm financial efficiency in the Czech Republic. Using a large panel of more than 400,000 Czech firm/years we study whether firms fully utilize their resources, how firm financial efficiency evolves over time, and how firm financial efficiency is...

The initial view of the advantages of ownership concentration in joint stock companies was determined by the concern about the opportunistic managerial behavior. The growing importance of knowledge and human capital in the operation of firms shifts the focus of concern: excessive ownership...

This paper documents the ultimate shareholding structures of 826 corporations listed on China's stock market and finds large equity holdings of the government. Using a panel data set, this paper further finds that corporate value decreases with an increased size of government shareholding when...

Despite the longstanding insider trading debate, there is little empirical research on insider trading laws, especially in a comparative context. The article attempts to fill that gap. I find that countries with more prohibitive insider trading laws have more diffuse equity ownership, more...

The study examines the economic consequences of regulated disclosure in the banking sector, focusing on its impacts on the stability of banking systems. In a cross-country study of banking systems across 49 countries in the 90s, I find that banking crises are less likely in countries with...

Transition has entailed the introduction of policies to stimulate product market competition, to establish effective corporate governance and to harden enterprise budget constraints. How do these policies interact? Are they substitute policy instruments or does one policy reinforce the effect of...

The paper seeks to assess how a major policy regime change – such as the introduction of the currency board in Bulgaria – affects the flow of bank credit to the corporate sector. An attempt is made to identify the determinants of corporate credit separately from the viewpoint of lenders and...

Economic development implies that the efficiency of firms in developing countries is approaching that of firms in advanced economies. We examine the extent of this convergence in the Czech Republic and Russia, economies that represent alternative models of implementing development policies,...

Using data from Estonian manufacturing firms during the period 1995-1999 we apply panel data techniques, in particular the Arellano-Bond (1991) method to investigate the investment behaviour. We employ the model of optimal capital accumulation in the presence of convex adjustment costs. We find...

We examine financial constraints and forms of finance used for investment, by analysing survey data on 157 large privatised companies in Hungary and Poland for the period 1998 – 2000. The Bayesian analysis using Gibbs sampling is carried out to obtain inferences about the sample companies’...