Government ownership and the cost of debt : evidence from government investments in publicly traded firms

Contrary to public perceptions and despite the worldwide success of state privatizations, over the past decade governments have acquired more assets through stock purchases (US$969 billion) than they have sold through share issue privatizations and direct sales (US$ 765 billion). In fact, governments and stateowned entities have been such active stock-market investors that they now own approximately one-fifth of global stock-market capitalization

Government ownership and the cost of debt : evidence from government investments in publicly traded firms

Contrary to public perceptions and despite the worldwide success of state privatizations, over the past decade governments have acquired more assets through stock purchases (US$969 billion) than they have sold through share issue privatizations and direct sales (US$ 765 billion). In fact, governments and stateowned entities have been such active stock-market investors that they now own approximately one-fifth of global stock-market capitalization

Formality and informality in the summative assessment of motor vehicle apprentices: a case study

This article explores the interaction of formal and informal attributes of competence‐based assessment. Specifically, it presents evidence from a small qualitative case study of summative assessment practices for competence‐based qualifications within apprenticeships in the motor industry in England. The data are analysed through applying an adaptation of a framework for exploring the interplay of formality and informality in learning. This analysis reveals informal mentoring as a significant element which influences not only the process of assessment, but also its outcomes. We offer different possible interpretations of the data and their analysis, and conclude that, whichever interpretation is adopted, there appears to be a need for greater capacity‐building for assessors at a local level. This could acknowledge a more holistic role for assessors; recognise the importance of assessors’ informal practices in the formal retention and achievement of apprentices; and enhance awareness of inequalities that may be reinforced by both informal and formal attributes of assessment practices

International Coercion, Emulation and Policy Diffusion: Market-Oriented Infrastructure Reforms, 1977-1999

Why do some countries adopt market-oriented reforms such as deregulation, privatization and liberalization of competition in their infrastructure industries while others do not? Why did the pace of adoption accelerate in the 1990s? Building on neo-institutional theory in sociology, we argue that the domestic adoption of market-oriented reforms is strongly influenced by international pressures of coercion and emulation. We find robust support for these arguments with an event-history analysis of the determinants of reform in the telecommunications and electricity sectors of as many as 205 countries and territories between 1977 and 1999. Our results also suggest that the coercive effect of multilateral lending from the IMF, the World Bank or Regional Development Banks is increasing over time, a finding that is consistent with anecdotal evidence that multilateral organizations have broadened the scope of the “conditionality” terms specifying market-oriented reforms imposed on borrowing countries. We discuss the possibility that, by pressuring countries into policy reform, cross-national coercion and emulation may not produce ideal outcomes.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/40099/3/wp713.pd

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND INVESTORS' PERCEPTIONS OF FOREIGN IPO VALUE: AN INSTITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVE

We build on sociology-grounded research on financial market behavior and suggest a “nested” legitimacy framework to explore U.S. investor perceptions of foreign IPO value. We draw on a fuzzy-set theoretic approach to demonstrate how different combinations of monitoring and incentive-based corporate governance mechanisms lead to the same level of investor valuations of firms. We also argue that institutional factors related to the minority shareholder protection strength in the foreign IPO’s home country represent a boundary condition that affects the number of governance mechanisms required to achieve U.S. investors’ high value perceptions. Our findings, drawn from a unique, hand-collected dataset of foreign IPOs in the U.S, contribute to the sociological perspective on comparative corporate governance and the inter-dependencies between organizations and institutions