This article provides pioneering empirical evidence on the ownership structure and firm performance relationship for the case of corporate agri-food companies in Russia. While Russia plays a vital role in the global agri-food system, its domestic agri-food production is evidently dominated by a small number of corporate enterprises, which are in turn characterized by high ownership concentration. We employ unique panel data obtained from 203 companies for the years between 2012 and 2017. A random effects model was used to analyze the impacts of ownership concentration and ownership identity on the firms’ financial performance, measured by return on assets and return on sales. Our results indicate an inverse U-shaped association between ownership concentration and firm performance, with average level of ownership concentration found to be on the descending range of the inverse U-shaped curve. Moreover, we observe a similar quadratic relationship between ownership concentration by government and directors and firm performance. On average, ownership by directors was found to be on the ascending range and below the peak point, suggesting a potential for further performance improvement, while the impact of agroholding ownership was found to be linear and positive.

中文翻译：

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俄罗斯农业食品领域的公司治理和公司绩效：所有权结构重要吗？

本文为俄罗斯农业食品公司的所有权结构和公司绩效关系提供了开创性的经验证据。尽管俄罗斯在全球农业食品体系中发挥着至关重要的作用，但其国内农业食品生产显然是由少数公司企业主导的，而这些公司又以所有权高度集中为特征。我们使用从2012年到2017年之间从203家公司获得的独特面板数据。使用随机效应模型来分析所有权集中度和所有权身份对公司财务绩效的影响，以资产回报率和销售回报率衡量。我们的结果表明所有权集中度与公司绩效之间呈倒U型联系，平均所有权集中度位于倒U形曲线的下降范围内。此外，我们观察到政府和董事的所有权集中度与公司绩效之间存在相似的二次关系。平均而言，发现董事的所有权处于上升范围内，并且低于峰值，这表明有可能进一步提高绩效，而农业所有权的影响则是线性且积极的。