Business Groups and Internal Capital Markets

Abstract

We compare the performance of firms affiliated with diversified business groups with the performance of unaffiliated firms in Turkey, all emerging market. We address the question of whether group-affiliated firms create internal capital markets or control large cash flows. Our findings indicate that group affiliation improves a firm accounting performance, but not stock market performance. Deviation of cash-flow rights front voting rights has a negative but insignificant effect on accounting performance, but a significant effect on market performance. We also find that a firm's accounting, but not stock market, performance increases with the level of group diversification. Our results show that internal capital markets play an important role for the existence of business groups in all emerging market context.