CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE: AN ANALYSIS OF PERFORMANCE INDICATORS AMONG THE THREE LEVELS OF BM&FBOVESPA'S DIFFERENTIATED MARKET

Corporate governance, which emerged in order to solve or mitigate the agency conflicts, seems to have the additional benefit of increasing the market value of the companies that practice it in higher levels. Empirical research developed in Brazil, United States and Europe have shown the benefits in economic performance achieved by companies with good governance practices in relation to those that do not adopt them. By taking an alternative and complementary line of inquiry, this study analyzes the relationship between different levels of corporate governance of companies and the increase in their market value, that is, if the higher corporate governance level means the higher increase in economic development. Were analyzed all the 182 companies present in BM&FBOVESPA's differentiated market, for they present the higher levels of corporate governance, distributed in three levels - "New Market", "Level 2", and "Level 1" - relating them to their market value. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and inferential analysis, applying average testes and variance analysis. We found evidences that companies listed in the higher level of differentiated market present a better economic performance, measured in terms of market value's average variation.