We develop a theoretical model to describe and explain variation in corporate governance among advanced capitalist economies, identifying the social relations and institutional arrangements that shape who controls corporations, what interests corporations serve, and the allocation of rights and responsibilities among corporate stakeholders. Our “actor-centered” institutional approach explains firm-level corporate governance practices in terms of institutional factors that shape how actors' interests are defined (“socially constructed”) and represented. Our model has strong implications for studying issues of international convergence.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/30040732.pdf

The Cross-National Diversity of Corporate Governance: Dimensions and Determinants

Cross-national distance is a key concept in the field of management. Previous research has conceptualized and measured cross-national differences mostly in terms of dyadic cultural distance, and has used the Euclidean approach to measuring it. In contrast, our goal is to disaggregate the construct of distance by proposing a set of multidimensional measures, including economic, financial, political, administrative, cultural, demographic, knowledge, and global connectedness as well as geographic distance. We ground our analysis and choice of empirical dimensions on institutional theories of national business, governance, and innovation systems. In order to overcome the methodological limitations of the Euclidean approach, we calculate dyadic distances using the Mahalanobis method, which is scale-invariant and takes into consideration the variance–covariance matrix. We empirically analyze four different foreign expansion choices of US companies to illustrate the importance of disaggregating the distance construct and the usefulness of our distance calculations, which we make freely available to managers and scholars.

/pdf/an-institutional-approach-to-cross-national-distance-4fukusl6cu.pdf

An institutional approach to cross-national distance

: This article provides an overview of both theoretical and empirical literature on the link between public investment (capital) and economic growth (national income). We first survey the channels through which public capital can conceivably affect growth. We then turn to reviewing the existing empirical literature, and we conclude that although not all studies find a growth-enhancing effect of public capital, there is now more consensus than in the past that public capital furthers economic growth. However, the impact reported by recent studies is not as big as some earlier studies suggested. We conclude with an overview of what is known about the optimality of public capital stocks.

/pdf/public-capital-and-economic-growth-a-critical-survey-33ib460nn5.pdf

Public Capital and Economic Growth: A Critical Survey

The paper analyzes the experiences and developments of Hungarian banking sector during the transitional process from a centralized economy to a market-oriented system. The paper identifies that early reorganization initiatives, flexible approaches to privatization, and liberal policies towards foreign banks’ involvement with the domestic institutions helped to build a relatively stable and increasingly efficient banking system. Foreign banks and banks with higher foreign bank ownership involvement were associated with lower inefficiency.

/pdf/development-and-efficiency-of-the-banking-sector-in-a-2r4lx0saxq.pdf

Development and efficiency of the banking sector in a transitional economy: Hungarian experience

In contrast to the United States, where the banking system has historically been fragmented, the Second Banking Directive allows European banks both to form financial conglomerates and hold equity stakes in nonfinancial companies. This paper analyzes the cost and profit efficiency of European financial conglomerates and universal banks. I find that conglomerates are more revenue efficient than their specialized competitors and that the degree of both cost and profit efficiency is higher in universal banks than in nonuniversal banks. These results indicate that the current trend toward further de-specialization may lead to a more efficient banking system. An investigation of the equity betas under varying business cycle conditions supports the hypothesis of superior monitoring capabilities on the part of universal banks. Finally, profit regressions suggest that operational efficiency has become the major determinant of bank profitability and that oligopolistic rents have become less prevalent in European banking.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3270685.pdf

Cost and Profit Efficiency of Financial Conglomerates and Universal Banks in Europe

The paper raises two questions about the industrial economics of banking: - First, why are financial market configurations so different across nations? We discuss the theoretical arguments by following the sequence Regulation-Structure-Performance (Section 2) - Second, do the differences in regulation and structure matter? Section 3 provides empirical evidence pertaining to that question. Throughout the paper we refer to two polar cases of financial systems: market (M)- and bank (B)-based systems. As for banks, we distinguish between specialised and universal banks. Universal banking is a particular institutional representation of B-systems. A first empirical test relating macroeconomic growth to financial variables suggests that these variables matter. We then test with a set of 88 banks the effects of regulatory and structural variables on the level and variability of bank performance. We conclude that universal banks achieve a better risk-return trade-off, due to superior monitoring and information collection capacity.

On the performance of differently regulated financial institutions: Some empirical evidence

Winds of Change: Economic Transition in Central and Eastern Europe.@@@Reforming Planned Economies in an Integrating World Economy.

Part 1 The rise and decline of communism - an overview: from prewar Russia to the Socialist Revolution and the new economic policy the need for reform - always present, never achieved socialist institutional design and the obsession with growth. Part 2 Transition and reconstruction: scope and timing of reforms price liberalization external liberalization macroeconomic stabilization privatization financial sector reforms. Part 3 Reforms in Central Europe: German unification - an extreme example of "Big Bang" beyond stabilization - the economic transformation of Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland Yugoslavia - is economics pleading against disintegration. Part 4 Reforms in the successor states of the Soviet Union: disintegration of the Soviet Union Russia - pas-de-deux between destabilization and reforms. Part 5 The new Europe from the Atlantic to the Ural: a European free-trade zone the cost of reconstruction.

Winds of Change: Economic Transition in Central and Eastern Europe

Analysing the key problems facing the transition countries in Central and Eastern Europe, this accessible book describes the legacy of the central planners, the progress achieved so far and the need for further reforms. It documents the outstanding successes and failures, and analyses why certain approaches to transition have worked and others have not. It tests where transition is over and shows how some countries have graduated from 'transition' to 'integration' through their efforts to join the European Union (EU). It discusses the costs and benefits of the eastern enlargement of the EU. The specific experiences of German unification, the Soviet Union's disintegration, and Russia's complex reforms are examined, as are the specific issues that need to be addressed in the Balkans. The book concludes by indicating how the expanding EU could help the poor performers through inclusion in a continent-wide integrated economic area.

Economic Transition in Central and Eastern Europe: Planting the Seeds

https://www.diw.de/documents/dokumentenarchiv/17/43043/bnl_manifesto.pdf

Alfred Steinherr

Papers

On the performance of differently regulated financial institutions: Some empirical evidence

Winds of Change: Economic Transition in Central and Eastern Europe.@@@Reforming Planned Economies in an Integrating World Economy.

Winds of Change: Economic Transition in Central and Eastern Europe

Economic Transition in Central and Eastern Europe: Planting the Seeds

An economists’ Manifesto on unemployment in the European Union