Changes in Corporate Governance Quality in Estonia between 1999 and 2007

This article documents significant improvements in the quality of corporate governance in Estonian listed firms between 1999 and 2007. Basing our approach in the agency theory framework, we construct a corporate governance index reflecting the specificities of transition economies in general and Estonia in particular. We base our index on best practice using a number of widely recognised sources. Using hand-collected publicly available data for 1999 and 2007, we calculate a corporate governance score for every listed company. Comparing the scores, we find an overall improvement in corporate governance during the period, which coincided with Estonia's accession to the EU. We find evidence that some corporate governance practices are better in cross-listed firms and those which were already in existence in 1989 and which were subsequently privatised. We identify some areas of corporate governance where practices could be enhanced.