Competing Globally: Institutional Voids in Emerging Markets

Abstract

This dissertation addresses institutional development in emerging economies, as well as its implications on firm strategy. Specifically, as emerging markets are characterized by “institutional voids”, that is, the absence of information or contracting intermediaries that effectively connect economic agents, I take imperfect information as a defining characteristic of emerging economies, and investigate how the ever-increasing societal demand for information disclosure and transparency affects firm behavior and competiveness. The three chapters of my dissertation examine “institutional voids” at product markets, labor markets and capital markets, respectively. In examining these questions, I utilized various empirical methods including natural, field and online survey experiments, and large-sample dataset econometric analyses.