Privatization Corporate Governance And The Emergence Of Markets

The volume focuses on privatisation in transition countries, addressing issues ranging from corporate governance to the relationship between privatisation and the emergence of markets, from a multi-disciplinary perspective. The contributors investigate both the theoretical groundwork of privatisation and enterprise restructuring as well as recent empirical evidence. The contributions show that changes in ownership titles are but one part of the story, being closely interwoven as they are with the transformation of corporate governance, enterprise restructuring, network transformation and the emergence of markets.

IFC Discussion Paper No. 32. Over the years, demand for education at all levels in Kenya has greatly outpaced supply, a gap that has been reduced by private schools catering to the needs of a wide range of socioeconomic groups. This gap will widen further unless the private sectors role is expanded, but private educational institutions face a number of serious constraints, primarily stemming from lack of adequate finance and, in many cases, limited management skills. This paper reviews the market and its constraints and focuses on conditions under which private financial institutions and the International Finance Corporation might play a useful role in the sector. Annexes include 1996 operating costs of Kenya's academic, technical, and vocational schools.

This publication presents the papers of the OECD conference on "State-Owned Enterprises, Privatisation and Corporate Governance" which took place in Paris on 3 and 4 March 1997.

"This book contains a collection of papers prepared at a World Bank conference held in June 1994 on privatization and private sector development in Russia. It reviews the privatization achievements of Russian reformers over the past three years, discusses emerging second-tier privatization and post-privatization issues, and summarizes the key themes in the papers presented at the conference. Between November 1991 and June 1994: 1) between 12,000 and 14,000 medium-size and large enterprises had been transferred to private ownership; 2) this set of firms employed more than fourteen million people, or about half of those employed in Russia's industrial sector; 3) about forty million Russian citizens owned shares in privatized firms or investment funds. Although the Russian privatization program has achieved impressive results, the transfer of ownership (mainly to insiders) is only a first step. This must be followed by equally essential second steps to facilitate ownership of privatized firms to external, core investors who will bring in much needed capital, managerial know-how, and access to global markets." -- Website.

for many years been heavily dependent on bank financing, and this situation has not changed fundamentally. In his paper on stock exchange governance in the European Union Guido Ferrarini discusses the relative merits of member and investor ownership and compares stock exchange regulation in a number of EU countries. Faced with increasing competition amongst themselves and against other enterprises that offer transaction services, such as proprietary trading systems, it is essential for European stock exchanges to improve their efficiency and to generate volume. Large investments in new information technology are necessary in order to preserve competitiveness in agIobaI financial market. The implementation of the ISD has accelerated cross-border transaction activity of member firms and investors and strengthened the pressure for convergence of national stock exchange laws in the EU. In their paper, Francesco Giavazzi and Marco Battaglini look at the role played by banks in privatization processes. Banks can be involved in such processes in several ways. They may themselves be the objects of privatization since in many countries a significant fraction of the banking industry is publicly owned. This is the case in France, Spain and Italy. But banks can also be important buyers of the equity of industrial firms sold by the government if they are allowed to do so. The authors characterize privatizations as a very good opportunity to set up the right environment for the development of new financial intermediaries and in general for asound corporate governance system.

Disappointment with insider trading in Russia, with voucher privatization in the Czech Republic, and with the privatization of infrastructure in many developing countries in many developing countries has spawned new critiques of privatization. How do theory and empirical evidence answer the much-debated questions, which is more important to performance, competition or private ownership? Are state enterprises more subject to welfare-reducing interventions by government than private firms are? Do state enterprises suffer more from problems of corporate governance?

The Czech Republic's mass-privatization scheme improved the management of privatized firms by concentrating ownership. And contrary to expectations, banks with an (indirect) equity stake in a privatized firm have a positive influence on the firm's corporate governance. The Czech Republic's mass-privatization scheme changed the governance of many firms in a short time. Claessens, Djankov, and Pohl show that mass privatization was effective in improving firm management because of the concentrated ownership structure that resulted. For a cross section of 706 firms for the period 1992-95, they find that the more concentrated the firm's ownership, the higher the firm's market valuation and profitability. Large ownership through bank-sponsored investment funds and strategic investors appears to be particularly important in improving corporate governance and turning firms around. They find no evidence that market valuation or profitability were lower for firms in which investment funds sponsored by a firm's main bank represented a large ownership stake. It is often argued that the firm's main bank having (indirect) ownership control could represent a conflict of interest. The empirical analysis here shows, quite the contrary, that such indirect ownership control has a significant positive influence. On balance, banks that had an (indirect) equity stake in a firm have a positive influence on the firm's corporate governance. This paper - a joint product of the Office of the Regional Vice President, East Asia and Pacific, and the Finance and Private Sector Development Division Division, Europe and Central Asia, and Middle East and North Africa Technical Department - was presented at the International Symposium on Capital Markets and Enterprise Reform in Beijing, November 8-9, 1996.

Privatization investment funds are the key feature of mass privatization programmes in transitional economies. This book offers a thorough survey of mass privatization programmes in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia, supported with extensive empirical analysis. The study of 'top-down' privatization funds in Poland and 'bottom-up' funds in the Czech Republic and Slovenia offers different solutions to the problem of how to improve the governance of privatization funds. The authors argue that the institutional structure of closed-end investment companies and open-end mutual funds has not provided the right incentives to maximize the value for the shareholders. In addition too many regulations are in place in underdeveloped markets to protect new shareholders unaccustomed to exercising their ownership rights. Instead, the authors argue that they need to promote adjustment in fund portfolios and ownership structures in order to spur the development of capital markets and effective mechanisms of corporate governance.