How Does Corporate Governance Risk at Home Affect Investment Choices Abroad?

Disparity between control and ownership rights gives rise to the risk of tunneling by the controlling shareholder, and is prevalent in many emerging market economies and present in some developed countries. At the same time, international investors come from different countries whose home markets are characterized by varying degrees of control-ownership disparity. This paper studies whether this difference in investors’ home countries affects their portfolio choice in an emerging market. It combines two unique data sets on ownership and control in business groups, and investor-stock level foreign investment in Korea. A key finding is that, investors from low-disparity countries disfavor high-disparity stocks in Korea, but investors from high-disparity countries are indifferent. Moreover, investors from low-disparity countries became averse to disparity only after the Asian financial crisis. These results suggest that the nature of corporate governance in international investors’ home countries affects their portfolio choice abroad, and therefore that these investors should not be lumped together in the analyses of their portfolio choice.

The Diffusion of Corporate Governance to Emerging Markets: Evaluating Two Dimensions of Investor Heterogeneity

This paper investigates whether foreign institutional investors in emerging markets can enhance shareholder value. We pay special attention to two dimensions of investor heterogeneity: whether an investor declares itself as an activist, and whether an investor comes from a country with a strong tradition of investor activism. First, we apply an event study approach to the announcements of block purchases by foreign institutional investors in Korea. We find that stock prices rise on average, but only when foreign institutional investors declare themselves as activists. Source country identities also matter: The positive stock price reactions are more pronounced when the activist investors come from source countries with a strong tradition of investor activism. Second, we examine corporate financial policies and governance practices of target firms one to three years following block purchases by foreign activist investors. We find that target firms are more likely to reduce cash holdings, raise leverage ratios, and peg dividend payouts and stock repurchases more closely to changes in earnings, but only if foreign activists are from countries with a strong tradition of activism. We conclude that openness to foreign activist investors, especially those from countries with a strong tradition of activism, can indeed put pressures on firms in emerging markets to adopt corporate governance practices that enhance shareholder values

The Diffusion of Corporate Governance to Emerging Markets: Evaluating Two Dimensions of Investor Heterogeneity

This paper investigates whether foreign institutional investors in emerging markets can enhance shareholder value. We pay special attention to two dimensions of investor heterogeneity: whether an investor declares itself as an activist, and whether an investor comes from a country with a strong tradition of investor activism. First, we apply an event study approach to the announcements of block purchases by foreign institutional investors in Korea. We find that stock prices rise on average, but only when foreign institutional investors declare themselves as activists. Source country identities also matter: The positive stock price reactions are more pronounced when the activist investors come from source countries with a strong tradition of investor activism. Second, we examine corporate financial policies and governance practices of target firms one to three years following block purchases by foreign activist investors. We find that target firms are more likely to reduce cash holdings, raise leverage ratios, and peg dividend payouts and stock repurchases more closely to changes in earnings, but only if foreign activists are from countries with a strong tradition of activism. We conclude that openness to foreign activist investors, especially those from countries with a strong tradition of activism, can indeed put pressures on firms in emerging markets to adopt corporate governance practices that enhance shareholder values

Cross-ownership, takeover threat and control benefit

This article critically examines two conventional ideas about cross-ownership: (1) it is almost impossible to takeover a cross-owned group of firms; (2) the controlling shareholder of a cross-owned group of firms extracts certain benefit from his/her control right. Through a simple analysis, we show that the amount of funds required to takeover a cross-owned group of firms is not necessarily bigger than the amount required to takeover a similar-sized stand-alone firm. Our analysis also indicates that the separation of control right and cash-flow right does not necessarily create extra benefit for the controller. Based on the analysis, we attempt to identify real barriers to the takeover of a cross-owned group of firms.

The Impact of Lifting Liquidity Constraints on the Distributions of Consumption, Assets, and Debts

This paper examines the distributional effect of loosening liquidity constraints on consumption expenditures, asset holdings and debts using two years of cross-section data sets (1996 and 2001). The data sets of our concern are unique in that they enable us to evaluate the consequences of the economic regime change following the currency crisis in Korea. Our findings indicate that (1) the loosened monetary regime after the crisis lifted the liquidity constraints as well as lowered various interest rates uniformly, (2) the less binding liquidity constraints contributed to the contraction of consumption inequality, which accounts for approximately 22.4% of the total reduction, and (3) the reduction of consumption inequality accompanied by the widened income inequality is attributed to easier access to debt financing

Mixing versus Sorting: Entering Top Universities

Ten cities in Korea have recently changed their high school system from “sorting” to “mixing” where students are assigned regardless of their academic abilities. We report that the number of high school graduates entering top universities has significantly decreased after the change.1