Promarket Reforms and Firm profitability in Developing Countries

Abstract

This study proposes that promarket reforms positively affect firms' profitability in developing countries because the accompanying improvements in external monitoring decrease firms' agency costs. We also argue that firms benefit unequally from promarket reforms because their agency problems are affected differently, proposing that promarket reforms improve profitability more for domestic state-owned and domestic private firms than for subsidiaries of foreign firms. Analyses of the 500 largest firms in Latin America from 1989 to 2005 support the arguments, suggesting that, contrary to the views of many critics of globalization, domestic firms are the main beneficiaries of promarket reforms in developing countries.