Cover -- Title Page -- Contents -- Latin American Development Forum Series -- About the Contributors -- Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- Acronyms and Abbreviations -- Overview: Corporate Governance in Latin America -- Introduction -- Investor Protection and Its Evolution -- Shareholder Rights in the 1990s -- The Evolution of Shareholder Protection to 2005 -- Access to External Finance -- The Size and Breadth of Capital Markets -- Ownership Concentration -- Insider Trading -- Firm-Level Corporate Governance -- Firm-level Samples and Corporate Governance Indicators -- Firm-level Corporate Governance Practices and their Impact -- Firm Migration and Disappearing Stock Markets -- Conclusions and Policy Implications -- Annex 1 Variable Definitions -- Annex 2 Variable Definitions -- Notes -- References -- 1 Insider Trading and Corporate Governance in Latin America -- Introduction -- Testable Hypotheses -- Estimation of Informed Trading Probability -- Methodological Review -- Does Informed Trading Probability Really Measure what we want to Measure? -- Data Sources and Sample Construction -- Stock Data -- Country Data -- Corporate Announcements Data -- Firm-Specific Variables -- Results -- Distribution of Informed Trading Probability -- Cross-Sectional Determinants of Informed Trading -- Informed trading and corporate governance measures used in the literature -- Event Study: The ITP Around Corporate Announcements -- The Market Value of Informed Trading -- Conclusions, Policy Implications, and Directions for Future Research -- Annex 1.1 Additional Figures and Tables -- Notes -- References -- 2 Corporate Governance, Ownership, and Dividend Policies in Argentina -- Introduction -- Literature Review and Working Hypotheses -- Corporate Governance, Ownership, and Performance -- Corporate Governance, Ownership, and Dividend Policies.

Corporate Governance and the Ownership Structure in Argentina -- Determinants of Corporate Performance -- Baseline Results -- Robustness Checks -- Endogeneity Checks -- Ownership and Performance -- Determinants of Dividend Policies -- Summary Statistics and Additional Regressors -- Econometric Results -- Conclusions -- Notes -- References -- 3 Corporate Governance and Value in Brazil (and in Chile) -- Introduction -- A Brief Review of the Literature and Working Hypotheses -- A Governance Practices Index for Brazil -- Data Sources -- Index Components -- Disclosure Questions -- Board Composition and Operation -- Ethics and Conflicts of Interest -- Shareholder rights -- Empirical Results -- Ownership Measures -- Value, the CGI, and Control Variables -- Multivariate Regression Analysis -- Market valuation -- Dividend payout -- Individual question analysis -- Extensions and Additional Robustness Checks -- Alternative Implementations of the Multivariate Model -- Endogeneity Checks -- Discussion of Potential Biases -- Comparative Analysis with Chile -- Conclusion and Policy Implications -- Annex 3.1 Variable Definitions -- Notes -- References -- 4 Corporate Governance, Market Valuation, and Payout Policy in Chile -- Introduction -- Capital Markets and the Institutional Environment: An Overview -- Conceptual Framework and Working Hypotheses -- Conglomerates, Corporate Governance, and Company Valuation -- Corporate Governance and Payout Policy -- Data Sources and Corporate Governance Measures -- Data Sources -- Ownership and Control Structures of Listed Chilean Firms -- Dividend Policies and Payout Ratios in Chile -- Agency Problems -- Corporate Governance Practices -- The Effects of Agency Problems on the Market Valuation of Firms -- Econometric Concerns -- Endogeneity -- Panel Data Estimation -- Censored Data.

Empirical Results on Agency Problems and Firm Valuation -- Robustness Checks -- Endogeneity -- Dividend Payout Ratios -- Do Governance Practices Affect Market Valuation and Payout Policy? -- Correlations with the Market Valuation of Firms -- Controlling for Endogeneity -- Conclusions -- Notes -- References -- 5 Corporate Governance and Firm Valuation in Colombia -- Introduction -- Data and Methodology -- Definitions of Ownership and Control -- Valuation and Performance Measures -- Corporate Ownership and Control -- Ownership Statistics -- The Separation between Ownership and Control -- Corporate Best Practices -- The CGI -- The Company Sample -- Survey Results -- Ownership, Control, and Firm Valuation -- Working Hypotheses -- Variable Statistics -- Econometric Results -- Final Remarks and Policy Implications -- Annex 5.1 Ownership Data Structure -- Annex 5.2 Variable Definitions -- Notes -- References -- 6 Corporate Governance and Firm Value in Mexico -- Introduction -- Capital Markets in the Last 30 Years -- The Birth of the Modern Stock Exchange and the Initial Collapse (1975-87) -- The Spurt: Stabilization and the North American Free Trade Agreement (1987-97) -- Back to the Same Place (1997-2006) -- What Explains the Poor Performance of Capital Markets? -- Shareholder Protection in 1995 -- The Letter of the Law -- The Enforcement of Laws -- The Evolution of Shareholder Protection from 1995 to 2005 -- Shareholder Rights in Corporate Law -- Securities Law in 2005 (Before the December 2005 New Law) -- Regulations on Self-Dealing Transactions in 2005 (before the December 2005 New Law) -- Pension Funds: The Consequences of Poor Investor Protection -- Ownership Concentration and Lack of Institutional Investors -- The Size and Breadth of Local Capital Markets -- Dividend Payments -- Enforcement -- Migration, Cross-Listings, and Acquisitions.

So, what might firms do? -- Corporate Governance, Valuation, and Investor Returns -- The Sample -- Data on Corporate Governance Practices -- Econometric Results -- Robustness Checks -- The Impact of Various Areas of Firm-Level Governance -- Reforms for Deepening Financial Markets -- Further Legal Reform -- Market-Based Mechanisms -- Conclusions and Policy Implications -- Annex 6.1 Variable Definitions -- Annex 6.2 Variable Definitions -- Notes -- References -- 7 CEO and Director Turnover in República Bolivariana de Venezuela -- Introduction -- Institutional Characteristics -- An Overview of the Economy and Stock Market -- The Legal Framework of the Capital Market -- Corporate Governance Practices -- Data -- Summary Statistics -- Empirical Analysis on CEO and Director Turnover -- CEO and Director Turnover, a Univariate Approach -- CEO Turnover, a Logit Approach -- Director Turnovers, a Poisson Approach -- Director Turnovers, OLS Approach -- Robustness Checks -- Lagged Values of Performance Measures -- Macroeconomic Controls -- Ownership Structure -- Endogeneity Problem -- Forced Turnover -- Conclusions and Policy Recommendations -- Annex 7.1 Nonparametric Tests and Regression Analysis -- Notes -- References -- Index -- Back Cover.