Corporate Governance and Firm Performance: Results from Greek Firms

Toudas, Kanellos and Karathanassis, George (2007): Corporate Governance and Firm Performance: Results from Greek Firms.

Abstract

In this paper, we construct a Governance Index for a sample of Greek companies quoted on the Athens Stock Exchange. We then classify firms, using each firm governance index, into three governance portfolios. Furthermore, the Fama and French model, extended to include a momentum variable, is tested for each of the three governance portfolios. Our findings suggest that most of the firms in our sample are semi-democracies followed by democracies and dictatorships respectively. Good governance appears to be of value in as much as we found higher Tobin’s q ratios for democracies followed by semi-democracies and dictatorships. We, also, report significant negative abnormal returns for shareholder-friendly and manager-friendly firms. The findings of significant negative abnormal returns are consistent with inefficient capital markets. At a practitioner level, the results imply that firms should practice vigorously good governance, as it is a policy of value to shareholders and possibly to other stakeholders.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Corporate Governance, Firm Performance, Democratic and Dictatorship Firms
• Subjects: G - Financial Economics > G1 - General Financial Markets > G14 - Information and Market Efficiency ; Event Studies ; Insider Trading; G - Financial Economics > G3 - Corporate Finance and Governance > G30 - General

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