IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jlawec/v40y1997i1p1-22.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Government as a Shareholder: A Case from the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Kole, Stacey R
  • Mulherin, J Harold

Abstract

The authors sample of U.S. corporations in which the federal government held 35-100 percent of the outstanding common stock for between 1 and 23 years during and following World War II. We find that although the firms experienced abnormally high turnover among corporate board members, the tenure of senior management was relatively stable. Moreover, the performance of the government-owned companies was not significantly different than that of private-sector firms in the same industry. Hence, the interim government custodianship of the firms in our case does not have the effects normally attributed to government ownership. Copyright 1997 by the University of Chicago.

Suggested Citation

  • Kole, Stacey R & Mulherin, J Harold, 1997. "The Government as a Shareholder: A Case from the United States," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40(1), pages 1-22, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jlawec:v:40:y:1997:i:1:p:1-22
    DOI: 10.1086/467364
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/467364
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/467364?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. Eckel, Catherine C & Vermaelen, Theo, 1986. "Internal Regulation: The Effects of Government Ownership on the Value of the Firm," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29(2), pages 381-403, October.
    2. Jensen, Michael C & Meckling, William H, 1979. "Rights and Production Functions: An Application to Labor-managed Firms and Codetermination," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(4), pages 469-506, October.
    3. Peltzman, Sam, 1971. "Pricing in Public and Private Enterprises: Electric Utilities in the United States," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 14(1), pages 109-147, April.
    4. Boardman, Anthony E & Vining, Aidan R, 1989. "Ownership and Performance in Competitive Environments: A Comparison of the Performance of Private, Mixed, and State-Owned Enterprises," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(1), pages 1-33, April.
    5. Lindsay, Cotton M, 1976. "A Theory of Government Enterprise," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(5), pages 1061-1077, October.
    6. Barclay, Michael J & Holderness, Clifford G, 1991. "Negotiated Block Trades and Corporate Control," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(3), pages 861-878, July.
    7. Megginson, William L & Nash, Robert C & van Randenborgh, Matthias, 1994. "The Financial and Operating Performance of Newly Privatized Firms: An International Empirical Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(2), pages 403-452, June.
    8. Eckel, Catherine C & Vining, Aidan R, 1985. "Elements of a Theory of Mixed Enterprise," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 32(1), pages 82-94, February.
    9. Atkinson, Scott E. & Halvorsen, Robert, 1986. "The relative efficiency of public and private firms in a regulated environment: The case of U.S. electric utilities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 281-294, April.
    10. Fama, Eugene F, 1980. "Agency Problems and the Theory of the Firm," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(2), pages 288-307, April.
    11. Holderness, Clifford G. & Sheehan, Dennis P., 1988. "The role of majority shareholders in publicly held corporations : An exploratory analysis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1-2), pages 317-346, January.
    12. Karpoff, Jonathan M. & Rice, Edward M., 1989. "Organizational form, share transferability, and firm performance : Evidence from the ANCSA corporations," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 69-105, September.
    13. Teeples, Ronald K & Glyer, David, 1987. "Cost of Water Delivery Systems: Specification and Ownership Effects," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 69(3), pages 399-408, August.
    14. Boardman, Anthony & Freedman, Ruth & Eckel, Catherine, 1986. "The price of government ownership : A study of the Domtar takeover," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 269-285, December.
    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. Bozec, Richard, 2004. "L’analyse comparative de la performance entre les entreprises publiques et les entreprises privées : le problème de mesure et son impact sur les résultats," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 80(4), pages 619-654, Décembre.
    2. 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.
    3. Villalonga, Belen, 2000. "Privatization and efficiency: differentiating ownership effects from political, organizational, and dynamic effects," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 43-74, May.
    4. Khosa,Amrinder & Ahmed,Kamran & Henry,Darren, 2019. "Ownership Structure, Related Party Transactions, and Firm Valuation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781108492195, September.
    5. Willner, Johan, 2001. "Ownership, efficiency, and political interference," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 723-748, November.
    6. Alessandro Marra, 2006. "Mixed Public-Private Enterprises in Europe: Economic Theory and an Empirical Analysis of Italian Water Utilities," Bruges European Economic Research Papers 4, European Economic Studies Department, College of Europe.
    7. Sang Cheol Lee & Mooweon Rhee & Jongchul Yoon, 2018. "Foreign Monitoring and Audit Quality: Evidence from Korea," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-22, September.
    8. Hingorani, Archana & Lehn, Kenneth & Makhija, Anil K., 1997. "Investor behavior in mass privatization: The case of the Czech voucher scheme," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 349-396, June.
    9. John S. Earle, 1999. "Post-Privatisation Ownership Structure and Productivity in Russian Industrial Enterprises," Working Papers 1999.19, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    10. Alvaro CUERVO-CAZURRA & Luis Alfonso DAU, 2008. "Structural Reform And Firm Profitability In Developing Countries," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series wp940, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    11. Wolf, Christian, 2009. "Does ownership matter? The performance and efficiency of State Oil vs. Private Oil (1987-2006)," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(7), pages 2642-2652, July.
    12. Christian Wolf & Michael G. Pollitt, 2008. "Privatising national oil companies: Assessing the impact on firm performance," Working Papers EPRG 0805, Energy Policy Research Group, Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.
    13. J. David Brown & John S. Earle, 2000. "Competition and Firm Performance: Lessons from Russia," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 296, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    14. Kun Wang, 2009. "From State to State: Quasi‐privatization and Firm Performance," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 17(5), pages 52-68, September.
    15. John E. Kwoka, 2005. "The comparative advantage of public ownership: evidence from U.S. electric utilities," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(2), pages 622-640, May.
    16. Fabio Monteduro, 2014. "Public–private versus public ownership and economic performance: evidence from Italian local utilities," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 18(1), pages 29-49, February.
    17. Weiß, Christian, 2010. "The Ownership Concentration of Firms: Three Essays on the Determinants and Effects," EconStor Theses, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 30247, September.
    18. Fan, Joseph P.H. & Wong, T.J. & Zhang, Tianyu, 2007. "Politically connected CEOs, corporate governance, and Post-IPO performance of China's newly partially privatized firms," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 330-357, May.
    19. Ghulam, Yaseen, 2017. "Long-run performance of an industry after broader reforms including privatization," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 745-768.
    20. Henk Berkman & Rebel A. Cole & Lawrence J. Fu, 2014. "Improving corporate governance where the State is the controlling block holder: evidence from China," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(7-9), pages 752-777, September.

    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:ucp:jlawec:v:40:y:1997:i:1:p:1-22. 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: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JLE .

    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.