Ownership Structure and Corporate Performance: Evidence from Bangladesh

This paper models the corporate ownership and performance relationship in Bangladesh listed firms using a simultaneous equations approach. Consistent with contemporary literature a 'reverse-way' causality relationship between the two is documented. Using an unbalanced pooled sample of 660 firm-years, our results suggest that ownership does not have a significant impact on performance (Tobin's Q or ROA). However, performance does appear to have a significant negative impact on ownership. With few exceptions, other governance and control variables appear to have significant effects on both performance and ownership. These results imply that despite significant governance differences between Bangladesh and developed market economies there are strong similarities in 'internal governance mechanisms' and the implications of agency theory.