We investigate the effect of government share ownership on the cost of corporate debt. Government ownership could carry an implicit debt guarantee reducing the chance of default and leading to a lower cost of debt. On the other hand, government ownership could lead to a higher cost of debt if...

We explore whether government ownership affects the cost of debt using a sample of fully and partially privatized companies. On average across firms, a one-percentage-point decrease in government ownership is associated with an increase in the credit spread, used as a proxy for the cost of debt,...

We study the relation between state ownership and cash holdings in China's share-issue privatized firms from 1993 to 2007. We find that the level of cash holdings declines as state ownership increases. This negative relation is attributable to the soft-budget constraint (SBC) inherent in state...

This study presents the first comprehensive compilation of the number of people around the world who own shares directly and indirectly. We document that at least 310 million people in 59 countries (24 developed and 35 emerging market nations) own stock directly [Table 1]. Nearly 173 million of...

We investigate the relation between state ownership and corporate investment. In a matched panel of 624 European firms, state ownership curtails firms' responsiveness to investment opportunities. With increasing government ownership, investment becomes more sensitive to internal funds when...

Motivated by the recent rise of state capitalism, this paper investigates the effects of government ownership on market valuations across a sample of publicly listed corporations from East Asia. We find strong, robust evidence that government-owned firms exhibit higher market valuation than...