Erik Berglöf

Stijn Claessens

Abstract: "Enforcement more than regulations, laws-on-the-books, or voluntary codes is key to effective corporate governance, at least in transition and developing countries. Corporate governance and enforcement mechanisms are intimately linked as they affect firms' ability to commit to their stakeholders, in particular to external investors. Berglof and Claessens provide a framework for understanding these links and how they are shaped by countries' institutional contexts. When the general enforcement environment is weak and specific enforcement mechanisms function poorly, as in many developing and transition countries, few of the traditional corporate governance mechanisms are effective. The principal consequence in these countries is a large blockholder, but there are important potential costs to this mechanism. A range of private and public enforcement 'tools' can help reduce these costs and reinforce other supplementary corporate governance mechanisms. The limited empirical evidence suggests that private tools are more effective than public forms of enforcement in the typical environment of most developing and transition countries. However, public enforcement is necessary regardless, and private enforcement mechanisms often require public laws to function. Furthermore, in some countries at least, bottom-up, private-led tools preceded and even shaped public laws. Political economy constraints resulting from the intermingling of business and politics, however, often prevent improvements in the general enforcement environment, and adoption and implementation of public laws in these countries. This paper a product of the Global Corporate Governance Forum, Corporate Governance Department is part of a larger effort in the department to help improve the understanding of corporate governance reform in developing countries"--World Bank web site.

Enforcement and Corporate Governance

en jämförande studie av sex lñders finansiella system

Ägarna och kontrollen över företaget

Barry Eichengreen

Gerard Roland

Charles Wyplosz

Guido Tabellini

Erik Berglof

Monitoring European Integration was established in 1990 as an annual series of reports on the progress of economic integration in Europe. The objective of the reports is to raise the level of public discussion on European policy issues. Monitoring European Integration combines intellectual rigour with attention to key policy issues and is the only analysis of European integration that is specifically aimed at both European and non-European audiences. The series offers a distinctive and valuable forum for discussions of European economic policy which are analytically rigorous and yet accessible to policy-makers. The European Convention, which meets from March 2002-03, will make recommendations to heads of states on how to better run affairs in the EU. This report examines the various rationales of how to apportion responsibilities and make decisions, and offers a number of wide-ranging proposals.

A Political Architecture for Europe

Built to Last

Erik Berglöf

About

Books

Join the club