The Role of Self-Regulation in Corporate Governance : Evidence from the Netherlands

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to gather evidence on the success of market forces in promoting investor interests through self-regulation. Corporate governance is a complex mechanism design problem that is both economic and legal/political based. As such there is great interest in whether (and when) market forces alone are sufficient to prompt change, and whether (and when) additional legal/political actions are required to write and enforce contracts between the owners and managers of capital. The Netherlands provides an excellent opportunity to gather such information. In 1996, a private sector Committee was formed to initiate debate and change in the balance of power between a company's management and investors. In 1997, the Committee issued its recommendations and one year later the Committee initiated a project to assess the impact of the report. We identify the corporate governance variables that are linked to firm value and assess the impact of the committee's recommendations on t...

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