This dissertation principally analyses: (i) the privatisation of Zambia’s copper mines; (ii) the impact of state and private ownership and control of the mines on development; and (iii) the roles of mining TNCs in the Zambian economy. The research covers the period from independence in 1964 to 2006/7, but mainly focuses on the 1991 to 2006/7 period. The validity of several neo-classical theoretical views and counter-arguments pertaining to the social and economic benefits of privatisation and the private ownership and the activities of mining TNCs is tested in the mining sector study. The methodology is based on a case study comprising fieldwork and literature research, utilising a qualitative approach and an inductive method. The conclusions of the study could enhance knowledge from which other developing countries intent on privatising their SOEs could draw, as privatisation studies of sub-Saharan countries have mostly overlooked analyses of the social impact of the private ownership of enterprises. Key findings of the study are that the privatisation and private ownership of the mines by TNCs have failed to produce net positive socio-economic outcomes for Zambia. Furthermore, under private ownership of the mines, the political-economic benefits have shifted, mainly concentrating the surpluses from mining in favour of mining TNCs. The primary recommendations from the study are that certain measures, in particular a strong state capacity, are fundamental in enabling greater and more equitable redistribution of benefits for the country from privatisation, private ownership and the economic activities of mining TNCs.

The aim of this study is to investigate the influence of state ownership in Saudi firms listed in the stock market. The first chapter studies the influence of state ownership on financial constraint on investment. Some scholars believe state ownership has a negative effect on the firm value. However, by using two measures of financial constraint, the investment cash flow sensitivity and the Kaplan and Zingales financial constraints index, the finding indicates that the existent of government ownership decreases financial constraint in firms. Also, the results show that the higher government ownership percentage the less financial constraint in firms. The second chapter studies the influence of specific company factors and the government ownership factor on capital structure. The finding shows that tangibility of assets and size have a positive association with leverage. Leverage is negatively correlated with growth and profitably. Finally, the results suggest that government ownership affects the level of leverage negatively.

Asymmetric information has crucial implications for various market participants in financial markets, including investors (local and foreign), firms, and governments. The information asymmetry problem is especially severe in emerging markets. My dissertation attempts to address a few information-related questions that interest both academicians and practitioners. The first study adds some new evidence to the on-going debate of whether local or foreign investors are better informed. I offer a new perspective to the issue by examining two market segments within one country but separated by the relevance of local knowledge measured by state ownership. I find that state ownership has a dramatic asymmetric effect on local and foreign institutional investors in China’s stock market. Local (foreign) institutional investors have an informational advantage in state-owned enterprises (SOEs), while foreign institutional investors have an informational advantage in non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs). Moreover, the informational advantage of local institutional investors is less evident in SOEs with high board independence and better audit quality. Building on these results, the second study further uses local and foreign institutional ownership as a measure of private information and examines whether firm-specific return volatility proxies for price informativeness. I find firm-specific return volatility is positively related to private information. Therefore the results support the notion that firm-specific return volatility measures the rate of private information impounded into stock prices. My research contributes to the literature in at least four important ways. My findings reconcile the two opposing views on local and foreign investors in the literature and suggest that the informational advantages of local and foreign investors vary with the relevance of local knowledge. Examining only the whole market in past research masks important variation in the relative advantages of local and foreign investors in market segments within a country. My study also suggests that taking into account firm-level characteristics, especially corporate governance measures, can enhance our understanding of the behavior of institutional investors. Additionally I provide some of the first evidence to show that local political institutions can create barriers faced by international investors. Finally, my research confirms the merit of firm-specific return volatility as a measure of price informativeness. Together, these studies provide new insights into research on asymmetric information in emerging markets and have important implications for local and foreign investors, firms, and governments. / Thesis (Ph.D, Management) -- Queen's University, 2011-03-24 19:35:47.788

The primary focus of this thesis is a state-owned enterprise, its basic characteristics, the State-Owned Enterprise Act as its principal source of legislation and its status given by some other laws. The state-owned enterprise is a state organization and a specific organizational legal form of business through which the state carries out management of its property, carries on a business and thereby fulfills the purpose for which state-owned enterprise was founded. Specificity is manifested mainly by its property itself, the relationship to that property, the way of establishment and by performance of quasi-shareholders' rights. The main attribute of state-owned enterprises and state organizations in general is incapacity of possession of property rights. Inability of ownership does not only contrast with the ability to bind, but also raises questions concerning the legal personality. The relationship to the property has been expressed by rather vague "right to manage", which has not been used yet. The state-owned enterprise is regulated mainly by the State-Owned Enterprise Act. This regulation, though very brief in scope, has the ambition to be comprehensive legislation for state-owned enterprises. Nevertheless it is not sufficient for the treatment of all possible legal relations arising from the...

The first chapter of this dissertation argues that privatization and other policy changes in China during the past decade had a direct effect on input prices. This is in contrast to most previous work, which instead emphasized the effect of privatization on productivity. I illustrate the importance of taking such differences into account by estimating the parameters of a static firm competition model using the Chinese Industrial Enterprises Database and calculating a measure of total factor productivity for each firm out of those estimates. The results of my analysis indicate that the percentage difference in productivity between private and state-owned firms may be overestimated by as much as 135 percentage points if the difference in input prices is not properly addressed. The second chapter of my dissertation establishes empirical support for such a difference in input prices by constructing a dynamic structural model of privatization, firm heterogeneity and industry evolution, and estimating its parameters using the Chinese Industrial Enterprises Database. My estimates of the model confirm many well documented institutional features about China's reform, including "grasp the large and let go of the small" policy, easy access to credit for state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and selection for privatization according to firms' probabilities of success. In addition, the estimated structural model provides the basic tool for policy simulations and enables us to see the effects of hypothetical policies, for example “grasp the small and let go of the large” and “removing SOEs’ easy access to credits”. In the last chapter, I study the effect of privatization of state-owned enterprises in China, focusing on not only the effect of privatization on a firm's productivity, but also its effect on market output allocation. I use the method proposed by Olley and Pakes (1996) to find improvements in average market productivities for all industries in China. This growth in productivity resulted from enterprises becoming more productive, but not from more efficient output allocation within the market. Private firms are proven to be more productive than state-owned enterprises in all industries, but privatization itself improved firm efficiency only for some industries.

State multinationals were investigated in the 1980s. Since then, little work on the state multinational has been done because of the dramatic changes in the world in terms of both politics and economics, such as the waves of liberalization, deregulation and privatization. However, in the current global environment, we see the increase in the number of state multinationals, and thus initiate research of this study. This study investigates two sets of research questions. First, is the state multinational the overlap of two organizational forms (the state owned enterprise (SOE) and the multinational enterprise (MNE))? If so, what are the key characteristics and implications of the state multinational? Second, can the state multinational be considered a hybrid organizational form, which is different from that of its parents? Propositions are set forth to examine the first set of research questions. After clarifying the unit of analysis for this study, the second set of questions asks how state ownership influences the state multinational‘s international diversification and firm performance, and what is the impact of institutional ownership on the state ownership—international diversification relationship, and how home country institutional environments influence the proposed relationships. Hypotheses are proposed to investigate the second set of research questions and are tested with a three-year sample (2004-2007) and a seven year sample (2000-2007) of the state multinational. Results of hierarchical linear models indicate that the state multinational, first, does have characteristics that are different from its parents (i.e., the SOE and the MNE) and thus is considered a hybrid organizational form. Second, state ownership may improve the level of the state multinational‘s international diversification, but reaches a threshold, after which the positive influence diminishes due to the prominent agency costs. Third, institutional ownership has been verified as a useful mechanism to improve the effectiveness of corporate governance in the case of the state multinational. Fourth, home country institutional environments matter in the studied relationships. The state multinational in developed countries with an established institutional environment may not depend on state ownership as much as those in developing and emerging countries. Results also show the influence of state ownership on the state multinational‘s firm performance. The state ownership—performance relationship is also non-linear (inverted U-shaped). Moreover, in the case of the state multinational, the higher the level of international diversification, the higher the firm performance. In addition, international strategies of the state multinational function as a mediator for the relationship between state ownership and firm performance.

Central and Eastern Europe(CEE) is the region where the ownership of banks has been through the most fundamental and massive changes during the past two decades. This paper analyses the role of state-ownership in commercial banks, whether and why state ownership imposes negative effects on commercial banks in CEE transition countries, through both theoretical arguments and empirical testings. The thesis summarizes previous literature and analyses the role of banking ownership and performance, particularly though a dynamic view of the banking privatisation process. It investigates the reasons why state-owned banks are harmful in CEE countries from a corporate governance point of view. Followed by empirical tests on this topic, including banking production efficiency measurement using Stochastic Frontier Analysis and second-stage regression analysis about the effects of ownership on banking efficiency and asset quality. This paper finds out that the state ownership of banks imposes negative effects on bank performance and hinders successful privatisation of enterprises. Banking production efficiency has been improving greatly in late 1990s and stayed at a constant high level in 2000s. Through panel data regressions, we find the negative effects of state-ownership on banking production efficiency and asset...

Specificity of joint stock companies with state property interest Abstract This diploma thesis focuses on state-owned stock companies. This thesis aims to focus purely on stock companies with only short introductions to other forms of state ownership of corporations. The goal is to identify state as a legal entity and also as a shareholder. The other goals are an analysis of obligation to provide information and lastly a brief analysis of some other specifics when it comes to state-owned stock companies. The first part dealing with the identification of the state aims to sufficiently isolate stock companies from other possible state-owned corporations, while interpreting the relevant legal provisions combined with relevant court decisions. The second part focuses in detail on the obligation to provide information of state- owned stock companies. The goal is to analyze the relevant decisions of the Czech Constitutional Court in relation to the Act on freedom of information. Other chapters of this part focus on obligation to provide information in relation to Act on public procurement and to Act on the contract register . This second part heavily relies on judicial practice of both national and EU institutions. The third part deals with certain other specifics, which relate to state-owned stock companies....

The purpose of this exploratory research was to explore the effect of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) on State Owned Enterprises’ performance in South Africa. The aim of the study was to establish the impact that KPIs have on state owned enterprises, how they are currently measured and the causes of success or failure of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) on State Owned Companies.Fifteen respondents participated in this qualitative study. The survey method used was a questionnaire with closed and open-ended questions. The respondents were all Senior Executives including Chief Executive Officers, General Managers, Board Members and Senior Management employed by State Owned Enterprises reporting to the Department of Public Enterprises, Department of Transport and Department of Water Affairs. The research instrument that was used was a questionnaire with closed and open-ended questions. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

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