Using a unique sample of newly privatized firms from 59 countries, this article provides new evidence about the agency costs of state ownership and new insight into the corporate governance role of country-level institutions. Consistent with agency theory, we find strong and robust evidence that state ownership is positively related to corporate cash holdings. Moreover, we find that the strength of country-level institutions affects the relation between state ownership and the value of cash holdings. In particular, as state ownership increases, markets discount the value of cash holdings more in countries with weaker institutions.

A key issue in the finance-growth nexus literature is endogeneity – economic growth may drive finance as well as finance driving growth. Some research addresses endogeneity using relatively exogenous shocks from U.S. bank geographic deregulation, often documenting favorable economic effects. We connect deregulation shocks for the first time to individual firm growth in a model that differentiates sources of external financing – short-term debt, long-term debt, and equity. Our results suggest that deregulation increases firm growth overall and this growth is fueled by all three external funding sources. However, benefits accrue only to relatively financially unconstrained firms, while relatively constrained firms lose.

We examine how sovereign wealth fund (SWF) investments affect target firms' cost of debt. Using a large sample across 39 countries from 2004 to 2019, and applying a difference-in-differences (DiD) approach, we find that the loan spread of target firms decreases after equity investment by SWFs. This result holds when we use alternative specifications, and address endogeneity issues. Moreover, the negative effect is more pronounced for borrowing firms with higher risk. We also show that SWFs help reduce the cost of debt when they have a strong connection with the lead banks.

We provide unique firm-level evidence of the relation between state ownership and stock liquidity. Using a broad sample of newly privatized firms (NPFs) from 53 countries over the period 1994–2014, our study identifies a non-monotonic association between state ownership and stock liquidity. The inverse U-shaped relation is consistent with trade-offs between costs and benefits of state ownership and suggests an optimal level of government shareholdings that maximizes stock liquidity of NPFs. We further identify that the inflection point from the cost/benefit trade-off is contingent upon characteristics of the nation's institutional environment.

Using the high-power setting of newly privatized firms from 64 countries, we examine the relationship between ownership type and firm-level capital allocations as captured by the sensitivity of investment expenditure to investment opportunities. Consistent with our predictions that government and foreign institutional owners are associated with different levels of information asymmetry and agency problems, we find strong and robust evidence that government (foreign) ownership weakens (strengthens) investment-Q sensitivity, thereby increasing investment inefficiency (efficiency). Moreover, we find that the relation between foreign ownership and investment efficiency is stronger when governments relinquish control and country-level governance institutions are weaker. Overall, our findings highlight the important role of ownership type in determining firms' investment behavior and efficiency.

Using staggered board reforms as a quasi-natural experiment and a difference-in-differences approach, this study examines the impact of corporate governance on cash holdings in 41 countries. We find that board reforms are followed by significant reductions in cash holdings. This effect is more pronounced for firms with weaker pre-reform corporate governance and for firms from countries with weaker institutional environments. Analysis of cash spending suggests that, following board reforms, firms are more likely to use cash to increase R&D expenditures, dividend payouts, and share repurchases, but not to increase capital or acquisition expenditures. Finally, the results indicate that enhanced corporate governance following board reforms leads to higher (lower) cash (dividend payouts) values, consistent with the view that board reforms strengthen corporate governance.

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Using a sample of firms from 51 countries and a difference-in-differences approach that exploits corporate governance shocks induced by cross-listing in the U.S., we find that firms tend to engage in less tax avoidance after cross-listing. This effect is more pronounced for firms that experience significant improvements in corporate governance, and for firms from countries with weaker shareholder protection and disclosure requirements. Taken together, the results indicate that cross-listing in the U.S. helps align the interests of managers and shareholders and reduces managerial diversion. Data Availability: All data are publicly available from sources indicated in the text.