Propriedade estatal e governança

Abstract

As in other countries, in Brazil, the presence of the state as a shareholder in companies entails challenges from the corporate governance perspective. In the country, the direct participation of the state in public companies is concentrated in the sectors of energy (generation and distribution), transport and banks. How does this participation affect the governance of these companies? This study sought to investigate the effect of state ownership on corporate governance, using data from a sample of Brazilian public companies between 2010 and 2016. A governance index was created for the companies in the sample. The data were obtained from the reports of the Brazilian Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM). The statistical methodology adopted for the main analysis was a regression analysis (GMM model), whereas a secondary robustness analysis was carried out by way of an OLS regression. The main finding is that the presence of the state as a shareholder has a negative effect on the Corporate Governance Index (IGC) of public companies, in other words, state ownership is associated with a lower quality of governance. However, controversially, state ownership increases companies' probability of being listed in differentiated listing segments (Novo Mercado, Nível 1 and Nível 2 of B3), segments that serve as a governance quality certification for those companies.