We document that firms in eight East Asian countries and Japan diversify into more segments and engage into more related businessesas measured by the degree of vertical relatedness and complementaritythan firms in the USA. Using data for the 1990-6 period, we observe a trend towards...

June 1999 - Evidence from East Asia suggests that a firm's ownership relationship with a family or bank provides insurance against the likelihood of bankruptcy during bad times, possibly at the expense of minority shareholders. Bankruptcy is more likely in countries with strong creditor rights...

Firms in industrial countries are more likely to benefit from vertical integration and corporate diversification-learning faster and hence improving performance. Corporate diversification in less developed countries is more likely to lead to misallocation of capital. - The East Asian financial...