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The purpose of this paper is to empirically test how ultimate controlling shareholders' ownership‐control rights divergence and government intervention affect choice of capital structure (CS), and how the relationship between controlling shareholders' ownership‐control rights divergence and choice of CS is affected by government intervention.

Integrating the institutional background of China, the paper adopts balanced panel data containing related continuously obtainable information of 1,076 non‐financial companies listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2004 to 2008 (a total of 5,380 observed values), and applies a series of generalised least squares to empirically test how ultimate controlling shareholders' ownership‐control rights divergence and government intervention affect choice of CS, and how the relationship between controlling shareholders' ownership‐control rights divergence and choice of CS is affected by government intervention.

The empirical evidence provided by this paper indicates that: controlling shareholders' ownership‐control rights divergence is negatively correlated with leverage; government intervention is positively correlated with leverage; and government intervention will weaken the negative relationship between controlling shareholders' ownership‐control rights divergence and leverage, and make debt capital suppliers (especially financial institutions like banks, etc.) provide loans, especially long‐term ones, to companies with high ownership‐control rights divergence.

So far, it is still little‐known how ownership‐control rights divergence affects choice of CS and how government intervention affects the relationship between ownership and control rights divergence and choices of CS. This paper is the first to test how ultimate controlling shareholders' ownership‐control rights divergence and government intervention affect choice of CS, and how the relationship between controlling shareholders' ownership‐control rights divergence and choice of CS is affected by government intervention based on the institutional background of China.

This chapter investigates the role of macro corporate governance (legal and extra legal institutions) in determining the extent of ultimate excess control (i.e., the ownership-controls rights divergence of the ultimate owner) using a large sample of Asian and European companies. We find that the level of excess control is lower in countries with (1) good investor protection and better enforcement of information disclosure and (2) fairer competition laws, higher newspaper diffusion, and more regulated insider trading. Controlling for institutions subsumes the effect of firm-level determinants, as only leverage appears to be negatively and significantly related to excess control.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of the separation between control and cash flow rights (control-ownership disparity) on the earnings management practices of Chinese firms. The notable features of Chinese firms are those of concentrated ownership and the severe disparity that exists between the control and cash flow rights of controlling shareholders.

This study measures the level of Chinese firms’ earnings management by adopting two different methods of measurement: accrual-based earnings management (AEM) and real activity earnings management (REM). The authors also consider the possible trade-off effects between these two types of measurements. The data set in this study encompasses over 2,000 Chinese firms, using data from 2003 to 2015.

The results indicate that controlling shareholders are more likely to engage in AEM as their cash flow rights are more concentrated, while they are less likely to use REM as the disparity of control-cash flow rights increases. Further, this inverse relationship between REM and control-cash flow rights disparity becomes more pronounced in the case of a low cash flow rights group. As REM generally causes distortions in firms’ operations, it is possible that the controlling shareholders are more likely to constrain the use of REM as the disparity is perceived to grow. This result may indicate a reduced agency problem between controlling and minority shareholders due to the developing and/or existing ownership dispersions, which are mainly driven by recent reforms applied to Chinese capital markets. However, we do not entirely exclude the possibility of other types of expropriations by the controlling shareholders. It appears that the controlling shareholders are still able to exert a significant level of control, even following a substantial ownership dispersion, and they may seek alternative expropriation methods, including but not limited to intercorporate loan or related party transactions as the disparity of control-cash flow rights increases.

Although the Chinese economy is experiencing a series of reforms to infuse market forces into capital markets, little has been known about the effects of ownership-control disparity in Chinese firms. Our findings highlight the importance of the country specific context in this vein of research.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of corporate internationalization, governance structures, and legal protections on the foreign earnings response coefficient (FERC). The FERC is a measure of the value‐relevance of foreign earnings.

Data were collected on 3,653 Taiwanese firms which had overseas investments. The authors examined the impact of the site of their overseas investments and the nature of the legal code of the investee country on the investor perceptions of firms' reported foreign and domestically‐generated earnings. Also examined was the impact of corporate governance arrangements (e.g. the difference between the owners' cash flow and voting rights) on the same components of the firms' earnings.

The empirical findings suggest that an aggressive internationalization strategy (foreign direct investment) has positive effects on the value relevance of foreign earnings, but that this strategy is impacted by the firm's own corporate governance arrangements and the target of its overseas investment efforts. While foreign investments bring about growth and profits, they expose the investors to the risk of expropriation by investee countries and corporate insiders.

The importance of the findings is that they should help regulatory agencies – and firms themselves – to better understand factors that can promote the global expansion of domestic enterprises.

This paper aims to assess the impact of group affiliation and anticipated expropriation on North American firms' value.

The net impact of firms' affiliation to groups is generally far from evident. While group affiliation can be perceived as positive news because of the benefits of internal capital markets, the fear of expropriation of minority interests by large shareholders can mitigate such benefits. This commands some empirical investigations, which are done in this paper through statistical analyses.

The results indicate that group affiliation has a positive and significant impact on North American firms' value and, more specifically, on US firms' value. The negative impact of the anticipated expropriation of minority shareholders mainly comes from divergence in ownership and voting rights between the first and second ultimate owners. Group affiliation, then, is valuable, even in countries with well‐organized capital markets. The results may explain the current wave toward mergers and acquisitions.

The paper provides useful information on the impact of group affiliation and anticipated expropriation on North American firms' value.

The purpose of this paper is to review the state of existing literature for various corporate governance models by answering specific questions. Much has been written in the recent years on various corporate governance (CG) models, primarily the model of Anglo-Saxon and Continental European. In particular, it investigates most examined model in literature, forums used to publish and research types conducted, as well as basic differences between the two models. Findings of this paper suggest that more evidence-based systematic reviews on various aspects and geographical regions are needed to map the entire field of CG.

Much has been written in the recent years on various CG models, primarily the model of Anglo-Saxon and Continental European. This paper attempts to review the state of existing literature for these models by answering specific questions. In particular, it investigates most examined model in literature, forums used to publish and research types conducted, as well as basic differences between the two models. Findings of this paper suggest that more evidence-based systematic reviews on various aspects and geographical regions are needed to map the entire field of CG.

The authors found that although both models are well-reviewed, Continental European model is mostly explored with 47 per cent contributions as compared to Anglo-Saxon with 45 per cent. Moreover, majority of contributions are based on analytical research in terms of research type (30 per cent) and primarily focus on convergence of models. In addition, some 85 per cent of selected studies are based on theoretical research work, which leads to a significant dearth of empirical studies in the literature.

The scope of the paper is limited to two basic models of CG, namely, Anglo-Saxon model and Continental European model in context of specific research questions.

The systematic review on the basic models will assist the practitioners and policy-makers in determining the status of existing literature based on evidences. Further, it may facilitate in formulating new laws, regulations, codes and policies.

The authors used evidenced-based systematic approach for conducting literature review of CG models. Systematic review is getting much attention of researchers, as it minimizes the bias by adopting a replicable, scientific and transparent process. This review, as contrary to narrative, contributes to the CG models literature the findings based on evidences.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of the control-ownership wedge of controlling shareholders (excess control) on the survival of French initial public offerings (IPOs).

This paper studies a large sample of 434 French IPOs. The empirical analysis uses the Cox proportional hazard and accelerated-failure-time models. Data are manually gathered from IPO prospectuses.

The findings support a positive relation between the control-ownership wedge and IPO survival time, indicating that survival is more likely in firms with high excess control levels. This result is consistent with the view that controlling shareholders with a large control-ownership wedge have incentives to preserve their private benefits of control by increasing firm survival chances. The findings also show that older IPOs are more likely to survive, while riskier and underpriced IPOs are more likely to delist.

The results provide a better understanding of the role of excess control in IPO survival. They also enrich the debate on the efficiency of the one-share-one-vote rule.

The research provides new insights into the role of agency conflicts in IPO survivability. In particular, it explores the effect of dominant shareholders with a control-ownership wedge on survival time.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of borrowers' quality on the size of market reaction to bank loan announcements in the Chinese financial market, where poor quality borrowers are prevalent and the banking system is highly controlled by the Chinese government.

The paper uses different measures to proxy for borrower quality, including the borrowers' information opaqueness, possibility of expropriation and their financial status. A cross‐sectional regression analysis was conducted to investigate the relationship between the market response to bank loan announcements and the borrowers' quality.

It is revealed that the negative market response to bank loan announcements is particularly significant for borrowing firms with lower quality, including firms that are opaque, have a higher possibility of expropriation or tunnelling, have ineffective expropriation‐reduction mechanisms, are controlled by the state and are in financial distress, for the sample period 1996 to 2009. Furthermore, to test whether there is any significant difference on the effects of the borrowers' quality on the size of the market response to bank loan announcements following China's announcement of share‐split reform in 2005, this paper splits the sample period into sub samples, 1996 to 2004 and 2004 to 2005. The results on the effects of the borrowers' quality on the size of market response to bank loan announcements for the sub sample period 1996 to 2004 are similar to those for the full sample 1996 to 2009.

The paper's findings imply that the reforms in the Chinese financial market since 2005 do not have any significant effects on the borrowers' quality on the size of the market response to bank loan announcements for the full sample period.

This paper differs from previous studies in regards to the sample period and the measurements of the possibility of expropriation or tunnelling. The paper contributes to the banking and corporate governance literature.

This paper aims to show that the business group – i.e. the set of firms under common ownership and control – is the most appropriate unit to study the behavior and organization of firms and define their boundaries. Particular emphasis is given to notions such as unitary direction – i.e. the influence over strategic decisions – and administrative co‐ordination which allow owners to exercise supervision and authority over the controlled companies.

Given these aims the paper adopts an interdisciplinary perspective that relies on economics, management and law. This multidisciplinary approach is necessary for analyzing the different aspects characterizing business groups in terms of ownership, control, economic synergies between firms and internal organizational mechanisms. To support the propositions, data and information from various sources are used, ranging from official statistics on the firm's population, to sample surveys, case studies and juridical evidence. The use of different sources is justified not only by the interdisciplinary nature of the problem but also by the lack of systematic statistical evidence on the phenomenon of business groups.

The authors suggest that when a company is part of a group, the business group rather than the individual company is the most appropriate “unit” for analyzing the organization and behavior of firms. This does not deny that in some cases it can be worthwhile using the legal boundary as the appropriate unit; however, most of the empirical analyses about firms consider the legal boundary without considering whether companies are independent or part of a business group.

The authors show that forms of unitary direction and administrative co‐ordination are common in business groups; these forms can be assimilated to the internal organization of firms. For this reason they propose that the group rather than the individual company is the appropriate unit to delimit the boundary of the firm. In this sense, their main conclusion is that not considering the business group underestimates the actual firm boundaries.

The purpose of this paper is to study the ownership‐liquidity relation in the context of the Tunisian Stock Exchange.

In particular, the paper examines two empirical relationships: the relationship between ownership concentration and stock liquidity and the relationship between the separation of ownership from control and market liquidity.

The empirical findings verify that the structure of ownership remains concentrated in the majority of the Tunisian firms. It is found that stock liquidity decreases significantly with concentrated ownership. Different devices are used to gain control and hence a significant separation of ownership from control affects liquidity in different ways. The results indicate that pyramidal structures have a significant negative impact on liquidity for all controlled firms. However, for family firms, non‐voting shares increase liquidity for minority shareholders by reducing the probability of informed trading.

Overall, this study reports that non‐voting shares may be a liquidity enhancing device for family firms.