The Impact of Ownership on Companies’ Investment Rates in Ukraine

Abstract

In this paper, we empirically analyze the impact of ownership groups on companies’ investment rates in Ukraine using a new dynamic Tobin’s Q model allowing investment rates to depend on present and lagged Q. We find that the presence of a majority in and increases in state, non-domestic and financial companies’ ownership has a significantly negative impact on investment rates. State and insider ownership are associated with soft budget constraints whereas non-domestic, financial companies’ and financial and industrial groups’ ownership with hard budget constraints. The dynamic model shows persistence in the market-to-book value of equity, the proxy for Q.