Stock Markets and Corporate Performance: A Comparison of Quoted and Unquoted Firms

Ian Alexander () and Colin Mayer ()

No 571, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: This paper examines the influence of stock markets on corporate performance. It compares large private and publicly listed companies in the UK. It finds that, controlling for size and industry, quoted firms invest more and grow more rapidly than unquoted firms. They earn higher profits and pay out a higher proportion of their earnings as dividends. They raise more equity finance but use this to purchase equity in other companies. In contrast, private companies are concentrated in low technology industries. There is therefore no evidence of adverse effects of stock markets on corporate performance. The proposition that firms are involuntarily driven to seek listings, however, cannot be rejected.

Keywords: Corporate Finance and Investment; Short Termism; Stock Markets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1991-08
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=571 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:571

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.cepr.org/ ... pers/dp.php?dpno=571

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CEPR ().