Corporate Governance in Russia

Enikolopov R., Stepanov S.

The chapter describes the current state of corporate governance in Russia and the dynamics of recent years. Important features of the environment that affect corporate governance include weak legal institutions that lead to high private benefits to control, underdeveloped capital markets, high levels of ownership concentration and significant state involvement in business. In this situation, the main conflict of interest is not between a manager and a large number of dispersed shareholders, but between large and small shareholders, between different large shareholders, and between minority shareholders and managers/board members in state-owned companies. Many of these features are very similar to other emerging markets, but substantially different from conditions faced by firms in developed countries. Despite substantial improvement during the 2000s, the quality of corporate governance in Russia is still much lower than in developed countries, primarily because of the low quality of Russian institutions.

Keywords: corporate governance, emerging markets, boards of directors, minority shareholders, state-owned companies

In book

The Oxford Handbook of the Russian Economy

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.