State ownership may help firms have better access to credit and lower financing costs but it also results in “double agency” problem. This paper investigates whether foreign investors are afraid of investing in firms with state ownership. Our research sample includes 4,079 firm-years from 567 firms listed in Vietnamese stock markets during the period 2008-2017. We employ probit and tobit models to examine how state ownership determines foreign investors’ likelihood to invest and investment magnitude respectively. Furthermore, we continue to examine how an increase in state ownership changes foreign ownership. We find that firms with higher state ownership have lower foreign ownership. Besides, an increase in state ownership reduces foreign ownership. These findings imply that foreign investors tend to avoid investing in firms with high state ownership due to their concern for “double agency” problem.

中文翻译：

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外国投资者害怕国家所有权吗？

国有企业可以帮助企业更好地获得信贷和降低融资成本，但也会导致“双重代理”问题。本文调查外国投资者是否害怕投资国有企业。我们的研究样本包括 2008-2017 年期间在越南股票市场上市的 567 家公司的 4,079 个公司年。我们使用 probit 和 tobit 模型来分别检验国家所有权如何决定外国投资者的投资可能性和投资规模。此外，我们继续研究国家所有权的增加如何改变外国所有权。我们发现，国有较高的公司拥有较低的外资所有权。此外，国家所有权的增加减少了外国所有权。