We examine the long-run returns earned by domestic, international, and US investors who purchase shares at the first open-market price in 158 share issue privatizations (SIPs) from 33 countries during the period 1981-1997. We compute one-, three-, and five-year net returns for domestic,...

We examine the growth in global capital market valuation, trading volume and security issuance over the past two decades. After estimating the impact of share issue privatizations on the growth of stock markets, we find that privatizations have significantly increased market liquidity, as...