Urbi Garay

Corporate Governance and Firm Value: The Case of Venezuela

Manuscript Type: Empirical Research Question/Issue: We examine the relationship between corporate governance and firm value, and evaluate the relatively understudied governance practices in Venezuela. Research Findings/Results: We construct a corporate governance index (CGI) for publicly-listed firms that is free of self-selection and self-reported bias and find that its mean value is below the emerging market average in general, and below the Latin American average in particular. This weak investor protection environment makes Venezuela a good setting to study how corporate governance practices affect firm value. We show that an increase of 1 per cent in the CGI results in an average increase of 11.3 per cent in dividend payouts, 9.9 per cent in price-to-book, and 2.7 per cent in Tobins Q. These findings are robust after considering the potential endogeneity of our regression variables. Theoretical Implications: Results contrast to those reported in the US due to the higher interfirm variations in CGI. Our findings are consistent with the theoretical models that relate good corporate governance practices to higher investor confidence, and with the agency model of dividend payout. Furthermore, we conjecture that our results are generalizable mainly to other countries where investor protection is low. Practical Implications: Two direct insights to policy makers and practitioners follow from our analysis: first, managers in weak investor protection environments could differentiate their firms adopting corporate policies to improve their gover- nance structure; and second, our measure of governance practices gives investors a quantitative tool to better assess Venezuelan firms.

CEO and Director Turnover in Venezuela

The aim of this study is to achieve a better understanding of corporate governance structures and mechanisms outside the United States by looking at a specific emerging economy: Venezuela. We first build a corporate governance practices index for publicly listed companies in this country; the overall results indicate that Venezuela exhibits relatively low corporate governance scores. Using this limited sample, we are able to find a positive relation between this corporate governance index and its sub-components and alternative measures of value (Tobin`s q, price-to-book ratio, and dividend payout). In this environment, together with an underdeveloped financial market, a weak legal system, poor law enforcement, and high ownership concentration, we then address the question of whether the existing corporate governance system works at all in Venezuela. In particular, we are interested in studying the following two questions, which constitute a necessary condition for any corporate governance system to work. First, are poorly-performing CEOs more likely to be removed compared to well-performing CEOs? Second, is the role of the board to monitor the CEO or merely to serve as an advisor? To this end, we collected detailed data from 51 Venezuelan firms from 1984 to 2002. After controlling for characteristics related to CEO, board, ownership, firms, and time periods, we find that poor financial performance significantly increases the likelihood of CEO and director turnover. The empirical evidence is also consistent with the idea that directors in Venezuela play mainly an advisory role and not a monitoring role of the CEO.

Art as an investment alternative: the case of Argentina

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present the formulation of the first exhaustive price index for Argentinian (and other Latin American countries) visual artists using 5,069 works sold in auctions by 71 Argentinian artists during the years 1980-2014. Design/methodology/approach The authors estimated a regression of hedonic prices using the ordinary least squares method. When the regression was run and the results were analysed, the authors then estimated the annual price index of Argentinian artists’ work to then compare them with different financial and economic variables. Findings The average annual nominal arithmetic rate of return in dollars for Argentinian art during this period was 6.81 per cent, with a 29.11 per cent standard deviation. Argentinian art shows a low correlation with Argentinian and US companies’ shares and a slightly negative correlation with US bonds. This is the reason for artworks to be included in investors’ portfolios despite the relatively high volatility. Research limitations/implications Valuating works of art in Argentina can be explained by a series of their attributes. The benefits of art as an investment should be contrasted with factors including illiquidity and high transaction costs that are inherent when investing in works of art. Practical implications Argentinian artists’ works have higher prices when, ceteris paribus, they are dated; they are auctioned in either Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Galeria Arroyo, Roldan & Cia, Meeting Art, or Naon & Cia; they are oil or acrylic paintings; they are larger in size – although the price increase is decreasing when the size of the painting increases; and when the artist dies before their work is auctioned. Originality/value This work presents the first rigorous price index of Argentinian artists’ works. Additionally, and as far as the authors have been able to observe, the time-period in this article is the longest that has been used in studies on art as an investment in emerging markets.

The Behavior of Asian and Latin American Closed-End Country Funds and Investment Trusts Premiums Following the Asian Financial Crisis

This paper examines the behavior of Asian and Latin American closed-end country funds and investment trusts premiums following the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98. We document and analyze the puzzling large premiums developed by country funds dedicated to emerging markets after the crisis erupted. We also determine that none of the existing hypothesis that attempt to explain the closed-end fund discount puzzle can account for the emergence and time-series behavior of such large premiums, and propose a new explanation which assumes that money and capital markets are partially segmented. We perform a number of time series techniques such as cointegration tests and error correction models and find support for our hypothesis.