Corporate Governance, Financial Markets and Global Convergence [antikvár]

Introduction MORTEN BALLING The studies in this volume were presented at a Colloquium in Budapest arranged by SUERF and the Robert Triffin-Szirak Foundation in May 1997. All contributions deal with characteristics and trends in corporate governance systems. The structure of financial markets and institutions has a strong impact on the ways in which the power to manage corporate resources is allocated. The relative roles of different types of owners and the legal framework for their behaviour are changing all over Europe. Financial integration in the European Union and transition to open market economies in Central and Eastern Europe have a profound effect on the allocation of influence and on enterprise behaviour, and so has privatization, which is taking place in almost all European countries. The present collection of papers gives an impression of how many interesting corporate governance aspects researchers and practitioners have to deal with in a world characterized by rapid technological, political and institutional change. The first paper in the volume is the text of a keynote speech by Morten Balling. In the speech, he gives a general survey of the corporate governance problems to be discussed at the Colloquium. By referring to a so called 'Matrix of Governance by sector', he points out characteristics and trends in the interplay between different types of owners of equity and managers of financial and non-financial companies and institutions. In the paper by Ana Isabel Fernández Alvarez, Silvia Gómez Ansón and Carlos Fernández Méndez, the role played by the board of directors and the influence of the board on company performance is analysed. The authors use data from non-nnancial companies listed on the Madrid Stock Exchange. By applying a series of regressions they are able to observe statistically significant relationships between board size and firm performance. Their analysis indicates also that outsiders on the board are doing an effective job, which contributes in a positive way to company performance. In the paper by Fabrizio Barca, Giovanni Ferri and Nicola Pesaresi, the corporate governance role played by banks in Italy is analysed. In the first part of the paper, the authors take a historical perspective in which they discuss the implications of state ownership and the relatively close ties between political vii M. Balling el al. (eds.), Corporole Goi-ernance. Financial Markets and Global Convergence, vii-x © 1998 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in Great Britain.