IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jrpoli/v59y2018icp282-290.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can the market value state-owned enterprises without privatizing them? An application to natural resources companies

Author

Listed:
  • Wagner, Rodrigo

Abstract

State-owned enterprises may be strategic for many countries. For political or practical reasons some of these enterprises may remain wholly state-owned (WSOE), like PEMEX in Mexico or CODELCO in Chile. For this group, the lack of traded equity now prevents a market-based valuation. A market price would help provide an estimate of the WSOE's contribution to future fiscal income. It may also help keep managers more accountable and signal changes in the behavior of entrenched groups. Finally, a market valuation would also help valuing discoveries as well as research and development projects that are slow to yield profits. This paper presents a novel mechanism to create a market value for WSOEs, but without privatization. The method relies on independent parties trading a synthetic security. The security replicates the future cash flow that the WSOE pays to the government. It gives replicated cash-flow rights but no control rights of the WSOE. The document discusses methods to implement this principle and its potential challenges. Preliminary calculations show that issuing 3–10% pseudo-shares of some salient WSOEs could generate a meaningful valuation. This, without compromising state ownership of assets and decisions.

Suggested Citation

  • Wagner, Rodrigo, 2018. "Can the market value state-owned enterprises without privatizing them? An application to natural resources companies," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 282-290.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jrpoli:v:59:y:2018:i:c:p:282-290
    DOI: 10.1016/j.resourpol.2018.07.015
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301420717306633
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.resourpol.2018.07.015?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    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. János Kornai, 2014. "The soft budget constraint," Acta Oeconomica, Akadémiai Kiadó, Hungary, vol. 64(supplemen), pages 25-79, November.
    2. Harrison Hong & Terence Lim & Jeremy C. Stein, 2000. "Bad News Travels Slowly: Size, Analyst Coverage, and the Profitability of Momentum Strategies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(1), pages 265-295, February.
    3. Bruce M. Burton & A. Alasdair Lonie & David M. Power, 1999. "The Stock Market Reaction to Investment Announcements: The Case of Individual Capital Expenditure Projects," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(5‐6), pages 681-708, June.
    4. Frankel, Jeffrey A., 2011. "A Solution to Overoptimistic Forecasts and Fiscal Procyclicality: The Structural Budget Institutions Pioneered by Chile," Scholarly Articles 4723209, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
    5. Borisova, Ginka & Fotak, Veljko & Holland, Kateryna & Megginson, William L., 2015. "Government ownership and the cost of debt: Evidence from government investments in publicly traded firms," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 168-191.
    6. Ganbold, Misheelt & Ali, Saleem H., 2017. "The peril and promise of resource nationalism: A case analysis of Mongolia's mining development," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 1-11.
    7. Boot, Arnoud W A & Thakor, Anjan V, 1993. "Security Design," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(4), pages 1349-1378, September.
    8. Ricardo Caballero, 2002. "Coping with Chile´s External Vulnerability: a Financial Problem," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Norman Loayza & Raimundo Soto & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Series Editor) (ed.),Economic Growth: Sources, Trends, and Cycles, edition 1, volume 6, chapter 12, pages 377-416, Central Bank of Chile.
    9. Hellwig, Christian & Tsyvinski, Aleh & Albagli, Elias, 2011. "Information Aggregation, Investment, and Managerial Incentives," CEPR Discussion Papers 8539, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Guofu Tan & Justin Yifu Lin, 1999. "Policy Burdens, Accountability, and the Soft Budget Constraint," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 426-431, May.
    11. Jiahua Che, 2009. "A Dynamic Model of Privatization with Endogenous Post-Privatization Performance," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(2), pages 563-596.
    12. Ferguson, Andrew & Scott, Tom, 2011. "Market reactions to Australian boutique resource investor presentations," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 330-338.
    13. Boubakri, Narjess & Cosset, Jean-Claude & Guedhami, Omrane & Saffar, Walid, 2011. "The political economy of residual state ownership in privatized firms: Evidence from emerging markets," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 244-258, April.
    14. Titman, Sheridan & Wei, K. C. John & Xie, Feixue, 2004. "Capital Investments and Stock Returns," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(4), pages 677-700, December.
    15. Jeffrey Frankel, 2013. "A Solution to Fiscal Procyclicality: The Structural Budget Institutions Pioneered by Chile," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Luis Felipe Céspedes & Jordi Galí (ed.),Fiscal Policy and Macroeconomic Performance, edition 1, volume 17, chapter 9, pages 323-391, Central Bank of Chile.
    16. Bruce M. Burton & A. Alasdair Lonie & David M. Power, 1999. "The Stock Market Reaction to Investment Announcements: The Case of Individual Capital Expenditure Projects," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(5&6), pages 681-708.
    17. Filippo Belloc, 2014. "Innovation in State-Owned Enterprises: Reconsidering the Conventional Wisdom," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(3), pages 821-848.
    18. Jan Hagemejer & Jan Svejnar & Joanna Tyrowicz, 2018. "Are rushed privatizations substandard? Analyzing firm-level privatization under fiscal pressure," GRAPE Working Papers 27, GRAPE Group for Research in Applied Economics.
    19. Micco, Alejandro & Panizza, Ugo & Yanez, Monica, 2007. "Bank ownership and performance. Does politics matter?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 219-241, January.
    20. Bernardo Bortolotti & Mara Faccio, 2009. "Government Control of Privatized Firms," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(8), pages 2907-2939, August.
    21. Vining, Aidan R. & Moore, Mark A., 2017. "Potash ownership and extraction: Between a rock and a hard place in Saskatchewan," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 71-80.
    22. Daniel Carvalho, 2014. "The Real Effects of Government-Owned Banks: Evidence from an Emerging Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(2), pages 577-609, April.
    23. Rafael La Porta & Florencio López-de-Silanes, 1999. "The Benefits of Privatization: Evidence from Mexico," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(4), pages 1193-1242.
    24. Haber, Stephen, 2005. "Mexico's experiments with bank privatization and liberalization, 1991-2003," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(8-9), pages 2325-2353, August.
    25. Jones, Steven L. & Megginson, William L. & Nash, Robert C. & Netter, Jeffry M., 1999. "Share issue privatizations as financial means to political and economic ends," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 217-253, August.
    26. Hamdi Ben‐Nasr & Narjess Boubakri & Jean‐Claude Cosset, 2012. "The Political Determinants of the Cost of Equity: Evidence from Newly Privatized Firms," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(3), pages 605-646, June.
    27. Jeffry M. Netter & William L. Megginson, 2001. "From State to Market: A Survey of Empirical Studies on Privatization," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(2), pages 321-389, June.
    28. Chan, Kalok & Hameed, Allaudeen, 2006. "Stock price synchronicity and analyst coverage in emerging markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 115-147, April.
    29. Eric S. Maskin, 1999. "Recent Theoretical Work on the Soft Budget Constraint," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 421-425, May.
    30. Gary S. Becker, 1983. "A Theory of Competition Among Pressure Groups for Political Influence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(3), pages 371-400.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fernandez, Viviana & Pastén-Henríquez, Boris & Tapia-Griñen, Pablo & Wagner, Rodrigo, 2023. "Commodity prices under the threat of operational disruptions: Labor strikes at copper mines," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 32(C).

    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. Bram De Lange & Bruno Merlevede, 2020. "State-Owned Enterprises across Europe: Stylized Facts from a Large Firm-level Dataset," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 20/1006, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    2. Belkhir, Mohamed & Ben-Nasr, Hamdi, 2016. "Labor protection and the privatization or partial privatization method," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 305-322.
    3. Boubakri, Narjess & Guedhami, Omrane & Saffar, Walid, 2016. "Geographic location, foreign ownership, and cost of equity capital: Evidence from privatization," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 363-381.
    4. Ben-Nasr, Hamdi, 2016. "Labor protection and government control: Evidence from privatized firms," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 52(PB), pages 485-498.
    5. Boubakri, Narjess & Guedhami, Omrane & Kwok, Chuck C.Y. & Wang, He (Helen), 2019. "Is privatization a socially responsible reform?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 129-151.
    6. Ben-Nasr, Hamdi & Cosset, Jean-Claude, 2014. "State Ownership, Political Institutions, and Stock Price Informativeness: Evidence from Privatization," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 179-199.
    7. Holland, Kateryna, 2019. "Government investment in publicly traded firms," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 319-342.
    8. Saffar, Walid, 2014. "The political economy of share issue privatization: International evidence," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 1-18.
    9. Boubakri, Narjess & Chen, Ruiyuan (Ryan) & El Ghoul, Sadok & Guedhami, Omrane & Nash, Robert, 2020. "State ownership and stock liquidity: Evidence from privatization," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    10. Boggio, Margherita, 2011. "From Reluctant Privatization to Municipal Capitalism: an Overview on Ownership, Political Connections and Decentralization," MPRA Paper 46232, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Chen, Ruiyuan & El Ghoul, Sadok & Guedhami, Omrane & Wang, He, 2017. "Do state and foreign ownership affect investment efficiency? Evidence from privatizations," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 408-421.
    12. Kenneth W. Clements & Liang Li, 2014. "Valuing Resource Investments," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 14-27, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    13. Svejnar, Jan & Hagemejer, Jan & Tyrowicz, Joanna, 2018. "Are Rushed Privatizations Substandard? Analyzing Firm-level Privatization under Fiscal Pressure," CEPR Discussion Papers 12991, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Laura Cabeza García & Silvia Gómez Ansón, 2012. "What Drives the Operating Performance of Privatised Firms?," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 59(1), pages 1-27, February.
    15. Borisova, Ginka & Cowan, Arnold R., 2014. "Government asset sales, economic nationalism, and acquirer wealth effects," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 351-368.
    16. Kenneth Clements & Liang Li, 2017. "Understanding resource investments," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(20), pages 1950-1962, April.
    17. Ben-Nasr, Hamdi, 2016. "State and foreign ownership and the value of working capital management," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 217-240.
    18. Boardman, Anthony E. & Vining, Aidan R. & Weimer, David L., 2016. "The long-run effects of privatization on productivity: Evidence from Canada," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 1001-1017.
    19. repec:zbw:bofitp:2020_020 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Boubakri, Narjess & Cosset, Jean-Claude & Saffar, Walid, 2013. "The role of state and foreign owners in corporate risk-taking: Evidence from privatization," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(3), pages 641-658.
    21. Xinyu Yu & Ping Wang, 2020. "Government control and the value of cash: evidence from listed firms in China," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 55(4), pages 1341-1369, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    G21; G12; L5; Soft-budget constraint; Too-big-to-fail; Market-making; Security design; State-owned banks;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • L5 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy

    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:eee:jrpoli:v:59:y:2018:i:c:p:282-290. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/30467 .

    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.