1、中文 3100 字， 1900 单词 外文题目： Ownership Concentration and Corporate Performance in the Czech Republic 出 处： The William Davidson Institute 作 者 ： Stijn Claessens and Simeon Djankov The association between ownership structure and corporate performance is a much studied topic in both transition and market ec
2、onomies. The research on this topic dates back more than sixty years to Berle and Means（ 1933）， who contend that diffuse ownership yields significant power in the hands of managers whose interests do not coincide with the interest of shareholders. As a result， corporate resources are not used for th
3、e maximization of shareholders value. Several studies find a strong positive relation between ownership concentration and corporate performance in the United States and other market economies and attribute it to the impact of better monitoring. In transition economies， empirical studies find a posit
4、ive relationship between concentrated ownership and both voucher prices and stock market prices in the Czech Republic and China. Other studies find a positive relation between actual firm performance and ownership concentration in Russia. Much of the empirical work on the relation between ownership
5、structure and corporate performance has had difficulty controlling for the possible feedback of firm characteristic to ownership, especially since it has focused mainly on market economies with low transactions costs in changing ownership. Using a data set that, by construction , alleviates the endo
6、geneity problem can contribute to the dabate on the direction of causality. The design of the Czech privatization program precluded the adjustment of ownership to firm characteristics. In particular, the decision to change ownership was taken by the state, while the rules of the bidding process prev
7、ented participating agents from obtaining optimal ownership structure. Thus, we can study the link between concentrated ownership and firm performance following voucher privatization. The Czech voucher scheme prevented insiders from acquiring large ownership stakes, as few direct sales of assets too
8、k place before the voucher privatization. The short time before privatization, with the first round starting only three months after the initial announcement, made it difficult for investors with insider knowledge to accumulate sufficient capital to buy significant quantities of shares. The Czech vo
9、ucher, unlike its Russian counterpart, was not transferable so that the accumulation of an individual stake from the percentage of shares allocated to voucher privatization was impossible. We relate ownership concentration to two corporate performance parameters for a crosssection of Czech firms ove
10、r the period 1992 through 1997. In particular, we test whether firms with more concentrated ownership have experienced larger positive changes in profitability and labor productivity. Controlling for some firm-specific variables, we find that both profitability and productivity changes are positivel
11、y related with ownership concentration. A 10% increase in concentration leads to a 2% increase in short-term labor productivity and a 3% increase in shortterm profitability. The results are weakly robust to alternating econometric and data specifications. Empirical design： We have survey data on Cze
12、ch firms compiled by a private consulting firm. The database contains financial and ownership information for 1782 firms listed on the Prague stock exchange. All financial variables were defined using international accounting standards from the onset of the survey in 1992. A number of firms do not r
13、eport revenues， expenditures, or employment changes. We exclude them from our analysis. The 1992 through 1997 data are complete for 371 firms that went through the first phase of voucher privatization, and for 335 firms that went through the second phase. Such firm, a total of 22, are included in th
14、e sample. Using accounting data to test the effect of changes in corporate performance may be objectionable in formerly centrally planned economies. Data quality is weak as new accounting standards were introduced in the Czech republic only in 1992. nevertheless, firm in our sample do report quite c
15、omplete information and accounting has improved considerably since the onset of the transition. Especially in the last years of our sample, profitability and productivity can be expected to reflect the effects of ownership structures. For the empirical tests, we use profitability and labor productiv
16、ity as indicators of corporate performance. Profitability is defined as gross operating profit over net fixed assets plus inventory. Table 1 shows its increase over time, from 14.4% in 1993 to 16.9% in 1995 on average, followed by a decline in 1996. Seven of the top firms, firms with the highest pro
17、fitability, operate in the engineering and architectural design, management, accounting sectors. Six of the bottom 10 operate in the basic metals and the fabricated metal products, including armaments, sectors. Labor productivity is defined as value-added per employee, where sector-specific price indices provided by the Czech statistical office are used to deflate value-added . Labor productivity also increased throughout the period 1992 to 1996.
