shareholders in the ten largest non-financial, privately owned domestic firms; executive quality (Exec), which is an index of
constraints on executive power based on the number of effective veto points in a country; law and order (Law), which is a
measure of the integrity of the legal system; and enforceability of contracts (Enforce). In Panel C, we add to the baseline regression
five variables capturing information asymmetry costs: La Porta et al.'s (1998) transparency index (Trans); La Porta et al.'s (2006)
disclosure requirements index (Disclose); La Porta et al.'s (2006) liability standards index (Liability); La Porta et al. (2006) index of
securities market enforcement (Penf); and the prevalence of insider trading (Insider). Finally, in Panel D we include all the
additional country characteristics used in Panels A through C. Detailed variable definitions and data sources are provided in
Appendix A.