Agency costs and corporate governance mechanisms in Indian state-owned companies and privately owned companies - a panel data analysis

Abstract

This paper explores the impact of corporate governance reforms and changing ownership patterns of core public sector enterprises. A number of reforms were introduced by the Government of India in 1991, and intensified in 2004 with the aim of improving efficiency and financial performance across state owned enterprises. The core state enterprises provide a unique opportunity to consider two aspects of the reforms. First, did the reforms have an impact, and second, is there a distinguishable difference between wholly government owned and partially-public shareholding enterprises? The public listed companies provide a suitable reference point for comparison. A comprehensive dataset of 123 SOEs and matching listed public companies for 10 years was collected for the study. A regression approach is adopted with agency cost as the dependant variable and several corporation-specific governance variables. Size and industry are the independent variables. The findings of the study indicate that the agency costs for mixed ownership models tend to be lower than those of the concentrated state-owned firms because they operate in an open market with the market facing the regulatory framework of a competitive environment.