Outside directors and audit committees are widely considered to be central elements of good corporate governance. We use a 1999 Korean law as an exogenous shock to assess whether and how board structure affects firm market value. The law mandates 50% outside directors and an audit committee for...

The legal environment is one important determinant of corporate governance. However,  within  legal families,  also cultural  differences can explain the level of corporate governance to some extent. We analyze this relationship for the case of Switzerland.  Swiss firms  are mainly located...

We contrast the features of the German corporate governance system with those of other systems and discuss the recent regulatory initiatives.For example, the rules on insider trading and anti-trust have been strengthened.The Restructuring Act has been revised to prevent minority shareholders...

Corporate law in advanced domestic legal systems on the one hand, and typical treaties for the protection of foreign investment on the other hand, treat claims for damages by company shareholders differently. Advanced domestic systems generally bar shareholders from claiming for reflective loss...

In this paper, we show that ownership structures vary considerably across Europe, and that the dominant form of ownership is not necessarily the most efficient one. These findings are in contradiction to similar research based on US samples. The results also demonstrate that firms without a...

This article provides a framework for analysing the character and degree of ownership engagement by institutional investors.It argues that the general term “institutional investor” in itself doesn’t say very much about the quality or degree of ownership engagement. It is therefore an...

Privatisation is the major component in all the transition processes carried out in the Central and East European countries. With different pace and scale across the counties, it took distinct, sometimes even opposing forms. Nevertheless, almost all these countries have developed processes of...

Privatisation is the major component in all the transition processes carried out in the Central and East European countries. With different pace and scale across the counties, it took distinct, sometimes even opposing forms. The volume presents the results from a comparative research on mass...

The paper considers main stages and specific features of state sector development in the Russian economy. The model of the 1990's was characterized by mass privatization and lack of attention to the procedures of corporate governance in companies with state participation. In the second half of...

Worldwide, primary corporate bond markets have become an increasingly important source of financing for non-financial companies. This trend is coupled with a relative decrease in traditional bank lending to non-financial companies and low levels of bond interest rates. Just as shareholders,...