We examine how political, institutional, and economic factors are related to a country’s decision to privatize state-owned banks. Using a panel of 101 countries from 1982 to 2000, we find that political factors significantly affect the likelihood of bank privatization only in developing countries. Specifically, in non-OECD countries, bank privatization is more likely the more accountable the government is to its people. In contrast, none of our political variables affects the bank privatization decision in developed countries. Economic factors (such as the quality of the nation’s banking sector) are significant determinants of bank privatization in both OECD and non-OECD nations.

This study surveys the literature examining the privatization of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) We review the history of privatization, the theoretical and empirical evidence on the relative performance of state owned and privately owned firms, the types of privatization, if and by how much privatization has improved the performance of former SOEs in non-transition and transition countries, how investors in privatizations have fared, and the impact of privatization on the development of capital markets and corporate governance. In most settings privatization “works” in that the firms become more efficient, more profitable, and financially healthier, and reward investors.

Using 8,000 public companies we study the impact of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) and other contemporary reforms on directors and boards, guided by their impact on the supply and demand for directors. SOX increased director workload and risk (reducing the supply), and increased demand by mandating that firms have more outside directors. We find both broad-based changes and cross-sectional changes (by firm size). Board committees meet more often post SOX and Director and Officer (D&O) insurance premiums doubled. Directors post SOX are more likely to be lawyers/consultants, financial experts and retired executives, and less likely to be current executives. Post-SOX boards are larger and more independent. Finally, we find significant increases in director pay and overall director costs, particularly among smaller firms.?

Abstract Employing a cross-country sample, we examine how a population’s underlying cultural values help explain gender compensation variation across corporate executives. The results show that the cultural differences, embedded in societies long before the board’s compensation decisions, have significant explanatory power for the observed gender gap in executive compensation. Using an Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition combined with variables previously shown to be fundamental determinants of executive compensation, we find that adding cultural measures increases the model’s explanatory power of the gender compensation gap from 44% to 95%. We use further identification strategies to support causal inference.