Tag: Agency Problem
Equity market reaction to events surrounding reforms in the minority shareholder protection
My 2012 thesis investigated the equity market reaction to events surrounding reforms in the quality and levels of minority shareholder protection, in particular country jurisdictions. The analysis was carried out using one minority shareholder legal protection reform that was enacted in Saudi Arabia and two reforms enacted in Tunisia from late 2007 until early 2009. ...
Empirical results of the relation between the minority shareholders protection and equity markets
My thesis examined empirically whether higher levels of legal protection for minority shareholders are associated with equity markets which were larger, more active, and faster in issuing new securities, that is to say equity market development. Using a sample of 16 MENA countries over the period between 2005-2009, panel data analyses as well as the ...
MENA’s Banking sector and monetary policy
The MENA region is classified as a bank-based financial system, where banks control most financial flows and possess most financial assets (Sourial , 2004: Ben Naceur and Omran, 2010). Although, there are over 600 banks with a widespread network of thousands of branches in the MENA countries, the World Bank (2009) suggests that there are fewer ...
Introduction into MENA Financial Markets and Institutions
There are significant differences in the levels of financial sector development among the countries throughout the MENA region. However, some broad generalisations can be made about its overall financial system. Despite the dramatic growth in financial institutions, the region’s financial sector is highly dominated by the banking system and plays a small role in the ...
MENA’s Economic Background
Despite the MENA region being rich in oil, gas and other natural resources, it still falls far behind other developing regions, especially Latin America and South East Asia, in terms of economic development (Wilson and Munawar, 1995). During the past 25 years, the MENA has shown an overall weakness in economic performance, being less economically ...
Demographic Characteristics of MENA Region
Historically, the MENA countries have been considered to include some of the world’s fastest growing populations (Fahimi and Kent, 2007). However, in the last three decades the region has experienced declines in its demographic growth rate. This is mainly due to the fall in fertility rates that started in North Africa and later spread to ...
Defining the MENA region
There is no standard definition of the MENA region, however, as the name indicates, the term compromises two main areas. The first part of the term, Middle East, creates a problem of definition as the geographical area does not have precisely defined borders. The Middle East was first used as term by the British in ...
Investor Protection and Dividend Policy
LLSV (2000b) show that countries with strong shareholder rights are able to force firms to disgorge cash and pay higher dividends. They find that dividend policies vary across legal regimes in ways consistent with a particular version of the agency theory of dividends. Specifically, firms in common law countries, where investor protection is typically better, ...
Shareholder Protection and Corporate Value
Empirical analyses, such as that of Brockman and Chung (2003), Caprio et al., (2007), Claessens and Fan (2002), Johnson et al. (2000a) and La Porta et al. (2002) suggest that the legal protection of shareholders’ rights influences the valuation of firms. This is important for this thesis as the size of financial markets which is ...
Shareholders’ Protection and the Ownership Pattern
The image of the public corporation as a firm owned by dispersed shareholders, while control is concentrated in the hands of management, as suggested by Berle and Means (1932), has been shown to be the exception rather than the rule in most countries around the world (La Porta et al., 1999; Coffee, 2001). Different studies ...