We investigate whether management quality explains firm performance in Russia. We find that it explains relatively little in terms of firm performance, but it does explain some of the differences between firms in Russia's Far East and the rest of Russia. Firms that have always been in private...

This paper documents recent structural changes in China's corporate landscape, based on company level data, providing a complementary perspective to that of official Chinese statistics. We classify China's largest companies by revenue since 2004 (based on Fortune Global 500 rankings), and...

Paper addresses the recent initiatives of EU Lisbon Agenda to increase level of R&D expenses in EU Member States by studying firm-level panel data in most advanced transition economy, Slovenia. Previous empirical literature - mainly cross-sectional - has tested the demand-pull hypothesis and...

This paper explores the relationship between ownership structure and firm value in firms listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The results of the estimations, taking into account simultaneity and reverse causality, show that the relationship between ownership concentration and firm value differs...

Privatization in Estonia has produced varied ownership configurations. This enables hypotheses on the productivity effects of different ownership forms to be tested. Findings are based on fixed effects production function models and are estimated using a large, random sample of firms. Depending...

This paper examines how ownership structure and institutional development influence the liquidity management and investment policies of firms, in response to the threat of political extraction in China. First, we document evidence that firms controlled by private entrepreneurs hold less cash...

In recent years, there has been a slow but steady change in ownership structures and corporate governance in Japan. As a result of economic stagnation, relations between companies characterised by cross-shareholdings and the main-bank system have become less rigid and institutional investors...

This study examines managerial disciplining in poorly performing firms using large panels for Belgian, French, German and UK firms. We consider the monitoring role of large blockholders, the market for share blocks, creditors, and non-executive directors. Board restructuring is correlated to...

Mass privatization offers a particularly suitable framework to study the change in ownership concentration as the extent of change is unusual for a stable market economy. Focusing on two different mass privatization schemes in two transition economies, Poland and the Czech Republic, we find that...

This paper analyzes the impact of blockownership dispersion on firm value. Blockholdings by multiple blockholders is a widespread phenomenon in the U.S. market. It is not clear, however, whether dispersion among blockholder is preferable to having a more concentrated ownership structure. To test...