Corporate Governance in Argentina: the outcome of economic freedom (1991–2000)

This paper develops and provides evidence for two statements: a) In Argentina, there has been a marked shift in ownership and control from big family‐owned domestic companies towards foreign groups and investment funds, and b) While coping with governance issues, Argentina has been following the common law countries tradition, fostering a capital‐market‐based financial system and swapping its corporate governance practices outright. To ground these statements on facts, I survey corporate governance issues in this country before 1991, the underlying legal framework, the new rules of the game in capital structure and ownership as from 1991, largely due to a wave of privatisations, restructuring, mergers and acquisitions that took place through the last decade.