Ownership Concentration and Foreign Investment in the Czech Republic: Development and Context
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2015 |
| Type | Article in Proceedings |
| Conference | Proceedings of the 11th European Conference on Management Leadership and Governance |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Field | Management and administrative |
| Keywords | ownership structure; ownership concentration; FDI; GDP; economic transition; review |
| Description | This paper first reviews and synthesises the results of previous studies on ownership concentration and structure in the Czech Republic. In addition, it brings new empirical evidence about the development of ownership concentration and structure in the Czech Republic between 2004 and 2012 which is based on data from more than 5,700 companies. Moreover, the development of ownership concentration and structure in the Czech Republic is put into the context of the transition of the Czech economy from a centrally planned economy to a free market economy and further significant events such as the monetary crisis in the late 90s, the accession to the EU or the financial crisis in 2008. To meet the length limit, ownership structure is proxied with a share of foreign capital in this paper. According to the results, ownership concentration is very high in the Czech Republic and has grown since 1993 with a few exceptions only. For a better comparison of the results from the different sources, ownership is expressed in several different ways (T1 to T5, T10) for the period for which the primary data is available. The development of shares of foreign direct investment is also analysed. This paper is primarily a review study, but it also fills in gaps in the evidence of ownership concentration and structure of Czech companies. It is often stated that the “Continental Europe” model tends to exhibit higher levels of concentration and more frequent bank ownership, whereas the “Anglo-American model” is characteristic by dispersed ownership with a strong presence of institutional owners. The Czech corporate governance model was two-tiered until the end of 2013 and the typical ownership concentration was said to be higher than in other countries with a two-tiered model. It is important for researchers to be able to quantify this difference. Since the beginning of 2014, Czech companies have been able to choose between two-tiered and single-tiered models. |