Corporate finance and governance in emerging markets: A selective review and an agenda for future research

There are important organizational and behavioral differences between firms in emerging markets and those in developed markets. We propose a top-down approach to understand how key institutional forces shape the structures and policies of firms in emerging markets. We review a selective set of prior studies as well as papers included in this Special Issue in identifying government quality, state ownership, and financial development as critical institutional forces that shape the financing and governance of firms in emerging markets. We suggest that future research should pay attention to several important but unanswered topics related to informal enforcement, government incentives, family firms, and network organizations.