Results on the 3 new indices highlight great variation across the 189 economies covered in the rights, responsibilities and protections afforded to minority shareholders, whether they are investing in a non-listed company or in a listed one. The new data set brings attention to areas of corporate governance that are often overlooked by policy makers. It also sheds light on the protection of shareholders in non-listed companies, an aspect on which data are seldom collected and yet that could prove to be a particularly important area of legislation and source of economic growth in economies with less developed stock exchanges and capital markets. More generally, the new indices should prove to be helpful in moving beyond a focus on the regulation of related party
transactions and identifying a broader array of features that could be lacking in the corporate law and securities regulations of some economies— contributing to sounder regulations that both protect minority investors and enhance entrepreneurs’ access to equity finance.