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Journal of Financial Intermediation Vol. 19 No. 4 2010

Corporate governance and regulation: Can there be too much of a good thing?

Valentina Bruno1; Stijn Claessens2

1 American University · 2 International Monetary Fund

Abstract

We investigate how company-level corporate governance practices and country-level legal investor protection jointly affect company performance. We find that in any legal regime there are a few specific governance practices that improve performance. Companies with good governance practices operating in stringent legal environments, however, show a valuation discount relative to similar companies operating in flexible legal environments. At the same time, a stronger country-level regime does not reduce the valuation discount of companies with weak governance practices. Our analysis suggests a threshold level of country development above which stringent regulation hurts the performance of well governed companies or has a neutral effect for poorly governed companies.

DOI
10.1016/j.jfi.2009.10.001
Volume
19
Issue
4
Pages
461-482
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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