This publication presents the papers of the OECD conference on "State-Owned Enterprises, Privatisation and Corporate Governance" which took place in Paris on 3 and 4 March 1997.

Policy makers and privatisation experts agree that it is critical to “get privatisation right.” A well-planned and executed transaction, backed by sound rationales, institutional and regulatory arrangements, good governance, and integrity can have consequences on future divestment activity by enhancing investor confidence while gaining the support of stakeholders and the public.

The new OECD Guidelines on Corporate Governance of State-Owned Enterprises provide an internationally agreed benchmark to help governments assess and improve the way they exercise ownership functions in state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

This title was first published in 2003.This book analyzes the policy initiatives used in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States to improve the efficiency of government service delivery, such as commercialization, privatization, and, in particular, corporatization. The book looks at how markets, corporate governance processes, and judicial and administrative reviews affect the efficiency and ethics of service delivery. The book crosses a number of academic disciplines - corporate law and governance, law and economics, public choice theory, ethics and public law and administration. It will also be of value to a range of professional constituencies - to those involved in governance functions in government and privatized corporations, to professionals servicing these organizations, and to officials administering government services. These issues are also highly pertinent to emerging economies where governance of public services is crucial to the transition to market democracy.

This publication provides insight into the varied and rich experience in SOE reform in the region over the past decade, highlighting reform initiatives undertaken at national and country specific levels.

Presents the OECD Guidelines on Corporate Governance of State-Owned Enterprises as well as a comparative overview of main practices and issues related to corporate governance of state-owned enterprises in the OECD area.

In 2005, OECD published a stocktaking of the corporate governance framework in the Organisation’s member countries. This publication was the basis on which the OECD Guidelines on Corporate Governance of State-Owned Enterprises (the “SOE Guidelines ...

The relationship between ownership structure and firm performance has been studied extensively in corporate finance and corporate governance literature. Nevertheless, the mediation (path) analysis to examine the issue can be adopted as a new approach to explain why and how ownership structure is related to firm performance and vice versa. This approach calls for full recognition of the roles of agency costs and corporate risk-taking as essential mediating variables in the bi-directional and mediated relationship between ownership structure and firm performance. Based on the agency theory, corporate risk management theory and accounting for the dynamic endogeneity in the ownership–performance relationship, this book develops two-mediator mediation models, including recursive and non-recursive mediation models, to investigate the ownership structure–firm performance relationship. It is demonstrated that agency costs and corporate risk-taking are the ‘missing links’ in the ownership structure–firm performance relationship. Hence, this book brings into attention the mediation and dynamic approach to this issue and enhances the knowledge of the mechanisms for improving firm’s financial performance. This book will be of interest to corporate finance, management and economics researchers and policy makers. Post-graduate research students in corporate governance and corporate finance will also find this book beneficial to the application of econometrics into multi-dimensional and complex issues of the firm, including ownership structure, agency problems, corporate risk management and financial performance.

Judith Clifton, Francisco Comín and Daniel Díaz Fuentes in Privatisation in the European Union reject the two dominant explanations provided in literature, which include a simple 'Americanisation' of policy and a 'varied' privatisation experience without a common driving force. Using a systematic comparative analysis of privatisation experiences in each country from the 1980s to the beginning of the twenty first century, the authors show how the process of European integration and the need for internationally competitive industries have constituted key driving forces in the quest for privatisation across the EU. As privatisation slows down at the turn of the millennium, what future can citizens expect for public enterprises? Privatisation in the European Union is essential reading for researchers, students and policy-makers interested in privatisation, EU policy and the history of public enterprises.