No abstract

We contrast the features of the German corporate governance system with those of other systems and discuss the recent regulatory initiatives. For example, the rules on insider trading and anti-trust have been strengthened. The Restructuring Act has been revised to prevent minority shareholders from stalling corporate restructuring via legal actions. The Takeover Act now prescribes a tender offer as soon as an investor acquires at least 30% of a fi rm's equity. However, the Act also allows anti-takeover devices. Despite the recent substantial changes, we conclude that the main characteristics of the German system are still in place.

This paper analyses whether the German corporate governance is converging towards Anglo-American practices. We summarise the extant empirical evidence on the various governance mechanisms that economic theory suggests ensure efficiency and describe recent legal developments. We find no clear signs of convergence in form, i.e. the main distinctive features of the German system have remained largely unaltered. However, changes occurred over the last decade (specially in the legal framework) suggest a certain convergence in function, i.e. some governance mechanisms have effectively incorporated aims and/or goals generally associated with the Anglo-American model.

Industry dynamics, Manufacturing, Regions, C33, R19, R30,

We present a new e-class command, acfest, that implements the method of Ackerberg, Caves, and Frazer (2015, Econometrica 83: 2411-2451 to estimate production functions. This method deals with the functional dependence problems that may arise in the methods proposed by Olley and Pakes (1996, Econometrica 64: 1263-1297 and, particularly, Levinsohn and Petrin (2003, Review of Economic Studies 70: 317-341) (implemented in Stata by Yasar, Raciborski, and Poi [2008, Stata Journal 8: 221-231] and Petrin, Poi, and Levinsohn [2004, Stata Journal 4: 113-123], respectively). In particular, the acfest command yields (nonlinear, robust) generalized method of moments estimates using a Mata function and two specification tests (Wald and Sargan-Hansen). After estimation, predict provides the estimated productivity of the firms in the sample.