Performance of Czech Companies by Ownership Structure

Our main finding is that ownership concentration in the Czech Republic is associated with improvements in the performance of operating companies, but only if ownership is concentrated in hands other than investment funds. We assessed the effects of ownership structure on economic performance by measuring the relationship between annual changes in performance and changes in the composition of ownership shares during the previous year. Previous studies measured the association between levels of performance and the composition of ownership. We used robust estimation techniques, in addition to OLS estimation. * Funding for this research was supplied by the World Bank. We are grateful to seminar participants at the World Bank and to Gerard Caprio for valuable comments and suggestions.