IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jecsur/v29y2015i4p733-778.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Rise Of The Fiduciary State: A Survey Of Sovereign Wealth Fund Research

Author

Listed:
  • William L. Megginson
  • Veljko Fotak

Abstract

We survey the literature documenting the rise of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), which, with assets under management of over $5.4 trillion at year-end 2014, are a major force in global finance. Research papers have analyzed the evolution of SWFs from stabilization funds to stand-alone wealth management funds; we both survey this research and show that more than 25 countries have launched or proposed new SWFs since January 2008. The most salient and controversial feature of SWFs is that they are state-owned; we survey the existing literature on state ownership and discuss what this predicts about the efficiency and beneficence of government control of SWF assets. We discuss the documented importance of SWF funding sources (oil sales revenues versus excess reserves from export earnings) and survey the normative literature describing how SWFs should allocate funds. We then summarize the empirical literature studying how SWFs actually do allocate funds—across asset classes, geographically, and across industries. We document that most SWF equity investments in publicly traded firms involve cross-border purchases of sizeable minority stakes (median around 20%) in target firms, with a strong preference for investments in the financial sector. Next, we assess empirical studies examining the impact of SWF stock investments on target firm financial and operating performance, and find universal support for a positive announcement period stock price increase of 1–3%. This, however, is significantly lower than the 5% abnormal return documented for stock purchases by comparable privately owned financial investors in recent studies, indicating a “sovereign wealth fund discount.” We conclude by summarizing the lessons of SWF research and pointing out unresolved issues.

Suggested Citation

  • William L. Megginson & Veljko Fotak, 2015. "Rise Of The Fiduciary State: A Survey Of Sovereign Wealth Fund Research," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 733-778, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:jecsur:v:29:y:2015:i:4:p:733-778
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/joes.12125
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Veysel Avsar & Cem Karayalcin & Mehmet Ali Ulubasoglu, 2013. "State-owned Enterprises, Inequality, and Political Ideology," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(3), pages 387-410, November.
    2. Dewenter, Kathryn L. & Han, Xi & Malatesta, Paul H., 2010. "Firm values and sovereign wealth fund investments," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(2), pages 256-278, November.
    3. Michael J. Cooper & Huseyin Gulen & Alexei V. Ovtchinnikov, 2010. "Corporate Political Contributions and Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(2), pages 687-724, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ormazabal, Gaizka, 2018. "The Role of Stakeholders in Corporate Governance: A View from Accounting Research," CEPR Discussion Papers 12775, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Elvira Sojli & Wing Wah Tham, 2017. "Foreign political connections," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 48(2), pages 244-266, February.
    3. Qiuhong Zhao, 2016. "Do Political Connections Affect Bank Loan Loss Provision Reliability?," Accounting and Finance Research, Sciedu Press, vol. 5(3), pages 118-118, August.
    4. Abdul‐Rahman Khokhar & Hesam Shahriari, 2022. "Is the SEC captured? Evidence from political connectedness and SEC enforcement actions," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 62(2), pages 2725-2756, June.
    5. Liu, Li & Liu, Qigui & Tian, Gary & Wang, Peipei, 2018. "Government connections and the persistence of profitability: Evidence from Chinese listed firms," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 110-129.
    6. Arouri, Mohamed & Boubaker, Sabri & Grais, Wafik & Grira, Jocelyn, 2018. "Rationality or politics? The color of black gold money," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 62-76.
    7. Aggey Semenov & Hector Perez Saiz, 2014. "The Effect Of Campaign Contributions On State Banking Regulation And Bank Expansion In U.S," 2014 Meeting Papers 1265, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    8. Zhang, Bobo & Zhang, Zhou, 2022. "Shining light on corporate political spending: Evidence from shareholder engagements," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    9. Bahoo, Salman & Hassan, M. Kabir, 2019. "A model of the Islamic sovereign wealth fund," Islamic Economic Studies, The Islamic Research and Training Institute (IRTI), vol. 27, pages 2-22.
    10. Su, Zhong-qin & Xiao, Zuoping & Yu, Lin, 2019. "Do political connections enhance or impede corporate innovation?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 94-110.
    11. Ang, James & Knill, April & Mauck, Nathan, 2017. "Cross-border opportunity sets: An international empirical study based on ownership types," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 1-26.
    12. Cheng, Louis T.W. & Leung, T.Y., 2016. "Government protection, political connection and management turnover in China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 160-176.
    13. Yik-Pui Low, Steven & Foo, Yee-Boon & Gul, Ferdinand A, 2023. "Corporate lobbying: Resource-seeking or rent-seeking? Evidence from audit fees," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1).
    14. Tarek A Hassan & Stephan Hollander & Laurence van Lent & Ahmed Tahoun, 2019. "Firm-Level Political Risk: Measurement and Effects," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(4), pages 2135-2202.
    15. repec:ces:ifodic:v:9:y:2011:i:1:p:15790762 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Hao Liang & Luc Renneboog, 2017. "Corporate donations and shareholder value," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 33(2), pages 278-316.
    17. Yang, Jie & Ma, Jieqiong & Zhang, Yong & Hong, JungHwa, 2018. "With whom should you have dinner? A multidimensional framework for understanding political ties in China," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 61(6), pages 891-898.
    18. Stephen P. Ferris & Reza Houston & David Javakhadze, 2019. "It is a Sweetheart of a Deal: Political Connections and Corporate‐Federal Contracting," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 54(1), pages 57-84, February.
    19. Gangi, Francesco & Meles, Antonio & Mustilli, Mario & Graziano, Domenico & Varrone, Nicola, 2019. "Do investment determinants and effects vary across sovereign wealth fund categories? A firm-level analysis," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 438-457.
    20. Deng, Yuping & Wu, Yanrui & Xu, Helian, 2019. "Political turnover and firm pollution discharges: An empirical study," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    21. Nan Zhang & Qiaozhuan Liang & Huiying Li & Xiao Wang, 2022. "The organizational relationship–based political connection and debt financing: Evidence from Chinese private firms," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(1), pages 69-105, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jecsur:v:29:y:2015:i:4:p:733-778. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0950-0804 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.