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What used to happen quietly behind closed boardroom doors is now subject of considerable public interest: Corporate Governance, a rising star on the economic sky. Over the last decades, the interest on this issue increased tremendously, making it the main topic of various discussions especially in the capital markets all over the world. Various accounting scandals in big international corporations, billions of deficits of important American investment banks in 2007 and 2008, the presence of excessive manager salaries and the business activities´ orientation of shareholder value maximization have created a lot of mistrust and doubt about the current organization of the private sector. Efficient corporate governance has become the key ingredient of a good business management. The purpose of this exposition is to describe the development and existence of corporate governance in the capital markets of Brazil and Russia and to analyze how it affected the performance of their stock exchanges. Especially in emerging economies where the legal system is often weak and shareholder protection very little or not existent, corporate governance becomes more and more important.

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Born in Vienna, Austria, Karen van de Rijdt studied International Business Administration at the University of Vienna. She is currently working at POINTSmanagement in the marketing division.

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