La privatización y la reestructuración de la fuerza laboral en todo el mundo

(Disponible en idioma inglés únicamente) Los críticos de la privatización sostienen que una reestructuración insuficiente de la fuerza laboral es una inquietud clave y que los gobiernos deberían crear mejores programas de reducción. Ponemos a prueba, empleando datos nuevos de una muestra aleatoria de 400 compañías de todo el mundo, las teorías en pugna acerca del acierto de los programas de reducción y sus repercusiones sobre los precios que pagan los compradores y las políticas de reenganche de los propietarios privados a continuación de una privatización. Nuestros resultados demuestran que los programas de reducción que llevan a cabo los gobiernos antes de una privatización están plagados de problemas de selección adversa. Al controlar la naturaleza endógena, varias políticas de reducción laboral tienen efectos negativos sobre los precios netos de la privatización. A modo de confirmación del argumento a favor de la selección adversa, varios tipos de redimensionamiento voluntario conducen a una mayor frecuencia de reenganche de los mismos trabajadores por parte de los nuevos dueños de la empresa privatizada. Los programas obligatorios basados en la capacitación son el único tipo de programas que guardan algún tipo de relación con precios más elevados y niveles más bajos de reenganche tras la privatización, pero los costos políticos y económicos de esta política pueden hacerla poco práctica. Lo más adecuado con respecto a la reducción laboral antes de una privatización parece ser una decisión moderada de no intervenir.

Corporate Governance and Firm Value in Mexico

The objective of this paper is twofold. On one hand, we undertake an analysis of the recent evolution of capital markets and their effect on the availability of external financing in Mexico in the last two decades. On the other hand, based on a newly assembled firm-level data set on corporate governance and firm performance, we show that better firm-level corporate governance practices are linked to higher valuations, better performance and more dividends disbursed to investors. These results hold after controlling for endogeneity. Overall, the evidence shows that the Mexican legal environment poses serious problems for access to capital.

A survey of securities laws and enforcement

The author examines the theoretical and empirical literature pertaining to securities laws and their enforcement by regulators and courts to establish what is known and what is yet unclear. Recent empirical research in the field has established that law matters. Mandatory disclosure requirements, insider trading laws, safeguards against self-dealing transactions, adequate regulatory powers, and simple laws that are easily enforced aid in the development of capital markets. The debate is now focused on identifying which components of securities laws matter most and on what the optimal regulatory framework for each country should be. Although public enforcement of securities laws is important, the author finds that the largest impact comes from aspects of the law that facilitate private enforcement. This means that the development of capital markets depends crucially on creating laws that facilitate enforcement and improving court procedures that allow for a more efficient dispute resolution.Decentralization,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Financial Intermediation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Environmental Economics&Policies,Financial Intermediation,Banks&Banking Reform,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Economic Theory&Research

Opening the Black Box: Internal Capital Markets and Managerial Power

We analyze the internal capital markets of a multinational conglomerate to determine whether more powerful unit managers enjoy larger allocations. We use a new dataset of planned and actual allocations to business units to show that, although all unit managers systematically over-budget capital expenditures, more powerful and better connected managers obtain larger shares of cash windfalls and increase investment about 40% more than their less powerful peers. Results survive robustness tests and are not explained by differences in managerial abilities or an endogenous allocation of managers across units. Our findings support bargaining-power theories and provide direct evidence of a source of capital allocation frictions.Internal Capital Markets, Corporate Investment, Capital Budgeting, Managerial Power, Agency, Influence Activities, Corporate Politics

Giants at the Gate: On the Cross-section of Private Equity Investment Returns

We examine the determinants of private equity returns using a newly constructed database of 7,500 investments worldwide over forty years. The median investment IRR (PME) is 21% (1.3), gross of fees. One in ten investments goes bankrupt, whereas one in four has an IRR above 50%. Only one in eight investments is held for less than 2 years, but such investments have the highest returns. The scale of private equity firms is a significant driver of returns: investments held at times of a high number of simultaneous investments underperform substantially. The median IRR is 36% in the lowest scale decile and 16% in the highest. Results survive robustness tests. Diseconomies of scale are linked to firm structure: independent firms, less hierarchical firms, and those with managers of similar professional backgrounds exhibit smaller diseconomies of scale.Private Equity, investment, LBOs, Buyouts

The Law and Economics of Self-Dealing

We present a new measure of legal protection of minority shareholders against expropriation by corporate insiders: the anti-self-dealing index. Assembled with the help of Lex Mundi law firms, the index is calculated for 72 countries based on legal rules prevailing in 2003, and focuses on private enforcement mechanisms, such as disclosure, approval, and litigation, governing a specific self-dealing transaction. This theoretically-grounded index predicts a variety of stock market outcomes, and generally works better than the commonly used index of anti-director rights.

Courts: The Lex Mundi Project

In cooperation with Lex Mundi member law firms in 109 countries, we measure and describe the exact procedures used by litigants and courts to evict a tenant for non-payment of rent and to collect a bounced check. We use these data to construct an index of procedural formalism of dispute resolution for each country. We find that such formalism is systematically greater in civil than in common law countries. Moreover, procedural formalism is associated with higher expected duration of judicial proceedings, more corruption, less consistency, less honesty, less fairness in judicial decisions, and inferior access to justice. These results suggest that legal transplantation may have led to an inefficiently high level of procedural formalism, particularly in developing countries.

The Economic Consequences of Legal Origins

In the last decade, economists have produced a considerable body of research suggesting that the historical origin of a country’s laws is highly correlated with a broad range of its legal rules and regulations, as well as with economic outcomes. We summarize this evidence and attempt a unified interpretation. We also address several objections to the empirical claim that legal origins matter. Finally, we assess the implications of this research for economic reform.Economic