Privatisation in Developing Countries: Performance and Ownership Effects

Over the last twenty years, privatisation, defined as the transfer of public assets (firms) from the government to private investors, has been on the reform agenda of more than 120 developing countries. The switch of ownership induces major changes in the corporate governance of firms, and in their incentives to restructure and improve efficiency and performance. This article evaluates this experience, focusing on its impact on corporate performance and governance, identifying several issues yet to be resolved.     

The effect of lockup on management earnings forecasts disclosure in French IPOs

Journal of Management and Governance - This study investigates the effect of lockup agreements on management earnings forecasts in initial public offering (IPO) prospectuses. Using a sample of 312...     

Product market competition and analyst following

In this study, we investigate the link between product market competition and the extent of a firm’s analyst following. Our research is motivated by prior studies on analyst coverage, as well as the literature pertaining to the informational and monitoring role of product market competition. Using a sample of 520 French listed firms over 2000–2013, we find support to the hypothesis that the number of analysts following a firm decreases with the intensification of competition. This result suggests that the disciplinary power of product market competition makes investors more confident that firms are well monitored, which reduces their incentives to seek additional private information produced by financial analysts. In short, our findings corroborate previous evidence that there is a substitution effect between competition and other external corporate governance mechanisms, especially analyst following. Our results also shed more light on how the quality of firms’ monitoring mechanisms and information environment is affected by the intensity of product market competition.