N° 20 (English). Transparency in the Corporate Governance of State-Owned Enterprises in Latin America

It is of critical importance to undertake reforms of corporate governance in Latin America’s state-owned companies (SOEs) in order to improve their management and impact since these companies are extremely important to the development policies of the region but have historically rendered poor results. Despite the importance of these factors, there are very few studies focused on outlining the trends in SOE corporate governance or on providing a regional approach, in particular, that would make it possible to identify the areas where further action and changes are necessary. Therefore, we have introduced a Corporate Governance Transparency Index based on the information available on the websites of 105 companies from 13 countries in the region that enable us to identify some of the major governance shortcomings of these companies. We found that the greatest deficiencies are concentrated in the mechanisms used in establishing the Board of Directors and information disclosure. Furthermore, the differences in the corporate governance of companies with different characteristics associated with their type of ownership, participation in bond markets and stock markets was evaluated. An analysis of the characteristics of SOE corporate governance in each one of the countries included in the sample is provided.