IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hrv/faseco/3606236.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Who Owns the Media?

Author

Listed:
  • Djankov, Simeon
  • Caralee, McLiesh
  • Nenova, Tatiana
  • Shleifer, Andrei

Abstract

We examine the patterns of media ownership in 97 countries around the world. We find that almost universally the largest media firms are owned by the government or by private families. Government ownership is more pervasive in broadcasting than in the printed media. We then examine two theories of government ownership of the media: the public interest (Pigouvian) theory, according to which government ownership cures market failures, and the public choice theory, according to which government ownership undermines political and economic freedom. The data support the second theory.

Suggested Citation

  • Djankov, Simeon & Caralee, McLiesh & Nenova, Tatiana & Shleifer, Andrei, 2003. "Who Owns the Media?," Scholarly Articles 3606236, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hrv:faseco:3606236
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3606236/Shleifer_WhoOwns.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 1999. "The Quality of Government," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 222-279, April.
    2. Ronald H. Coase, 2022. "The Market for Goods and the Market for Ideas," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 19(1), pages 166–175-1, March.
    3. Kaufmann, Daniel & Kraay, Aart & Zoido-Lobaton, Pablo, 1999. "Governance matters," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2196, The World Bank.
    4. Grossman, Sanford J. & Hart, Oliver D., 1988. "One share-one vote and the market for corporate control," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1-2), pages 175-202, January.
    5. Lucian Arye Bebchuk, 1999. "A Rent-Protection Theory of Corporate Ownership and Control," NBER Working Papers 7203, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Duncan Thomas & John Strauss & Maria-Helena Henriques, 1991. "How Does Mother's Education Affect Child Height?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 26(2), pages 183-211.
    7. Timothy Besley & Robin Burgess, 2002. "The Political Economy of Government Responsiveness: Theory and Evidence from India," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1415-1451.
    8. Stigler, George J., 2011. "Economics of Information," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 5, pages 35-49.
    9. Luigi Zingales, 2000. "In Search of New Foundations," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1623-1653, August.
    10. La Porta, Rafael & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1997. "Legal Determinants of External Finance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(3), pages 1131-1150, July.
    11. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1998. "Law and Finance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(6), pages 1113-1155, December.
    12. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez‐De‐Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 1999. "Corporate Ownership Around the World," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(2), pages 471-517, April.
    13. W. J. Henisz, 2000. "The Institutional Environment for Economic Growth," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(1), pages 1-31, March.
    14. Timothy Besley & Andrea Prat, 2006. "Handcuffs for the Grabbing Hand? Media Capture and Government Accountability," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 720-736, June.
    15. Michael Spence & Bruce Owen, 1977. "Television Programming, Monopolistic Competition, and Welfare," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 91(1), pages 103-126.
    16. Beck, Thorsten & Demirguc-Kunt, Asli & Levine, Ross, 1999. "A new database on financial development and structure," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2146, The World Bank.
    17. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2000. "The Contributions of the Economics of Information to Twentieth Century Economics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(4), pages 1441-1478.
    18. Demsetz, Harold & Lehn, Kenneth, 1985. "The Structure of Corporate Ownership: Causes and Consequences," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(6), pages 1155-1177, December.
    19. Douglas A. Van Belle, 1997. "Press Freedom and the Democratic Peace," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 34(4), pages 405-414, November.
    20. Barro, Robert J & Lee, Jong Wha, 1996. "International Measures of Schooling Years and Schooling Quality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(2), pages 218-223, May.
    21. World Bank, 2000. "World Development Indicators 2000," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 13828.
    22. David Strömberg, 2004. "Radio's Impact on Public Spending," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 189-221.
    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. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez‐De‐Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert Vishny, 2002. "Investor Protection and Corporate Valuation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(3), pages 1147-1170, June.
    2. Ehrhardt, Olaf & Nowak, Eric, 2001. "Private benefits and minority shareholder expropriation: Empirical evidence from IPOs of German family-owned firms," CFS Working Paper Series 2001/10, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).
    3. La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 2000. "Investor protection and corporate governance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1-2), pages 3-27.
    4. Jeremy Grant & Thomas Kirchmaier, 2004. "Corporate Ownership Structure and Performance in Europe," CEP Discussion Papers dp0631, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    5. Alexander Dyck & Luigi Zingales, 2002. "Private Benefits of Control: An International Comparison," NBER Working Papers 8711, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Grant, Jeremy & Kirchmaier, Thomas, 2004. "Corporate ownership structure and performance in Europe," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 19960, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Giannetti, Mariassunta & Simonov, Andrei, 2003. "Which Investors Fear Expropriation? Evidence from Investors' Stock Picking," CEPR Discussion Papers 3843, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Attiya Y. Javid & Robina Iqbal, 2010. "Corporate Governance in Pakistan : Corporate Valuation, Ownership and Financing," Governance Working Papers 22830, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    9. Dherment-Ferere, Isabelle & Köke, Jens & Renneboog, Luc, 2001. "Corporate monitoring by blockholders in Europe: empirical evidence of managerial disciplining in Belgium, France, Germany, and the UK," ZEW Discussion Papers 01-24, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    10. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez‐De‐Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2006. "What Works in Securities Laws?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(1), pages 1-32, February.
    11. Djankov, Simeon & McLiesh, Caralee & Shleifer, Andrei, 2007. "Private credit in 129 countries," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 299-329, May.
    12. Andrei Shleifer & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Rafael La Porta, 2008. "The Economic Consequences of Legal Origins," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(2), pages 285-332, June.
    13. Carlin, Wendy & Mayer, Colin, 2003. "Finance, investment, and growth," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 191-226, July.
    14. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez‐De‐Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2002. "Government Ownership of Banks," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(1), pages 265-301, February.
    15. Frank H. Stephen & David Urbano & Stefan van Hemmen, 2005. "The impact of institutions on entrepreneurial activity," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(7), pages 413-419.
    16. Gur Aminadav & Elias Papaioannou, 2020. "Corporate Control around the World," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(3), pages 1191-1246, June.
    17. Johnson Simon, 2002. "Coase and the Reform of Securities Markets," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(1), pages 1-19.
    18. Ayyagari, Meghana, 2004. "Does cross-listing lead to functional convergence? Empirical evidence," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3264, The World Bank.
    19. Kate Bishop & Igor Filatotchev & Tomasz Mickiewicz, 2002. "Endogenous ownership structure: factors affecting the post-privatisation equity in largest Hungarian firms," UCL SSEES Economics and Business working paper series 5, UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES).
    20. Ascensión Andina Díaz, 2011. "Mass Media in Economics: Origins and Subsequent Contributions," Working Papers 2011-02, Universidad de Málaga, Department of Economic Theory, Málaga Economic Theory Research Center.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L3 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise
    • H4 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods

    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:hrv:faseco:3606236. 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: Office for Scholarly Communication (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deharus.html .

    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.