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The purpose of this paper is to examine whether independent directors reduce corporate overinvestment and improve investment efficiency in an emerging market.

First, the author developed a research model in which corporate investment is a function of Tobin’s Q, the proportion of independent directors in the board and an interaction between them. Second, the author divided the full sample into groups of firms with a low- and high-financial constraint to compare the effects of independent directors between financially unconstrained and constrained firms.

With a full sample of 1,281 observations collected from 193 firms listed in Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange during the period from 2009 to 2017, the author find that the proportion of independent directors is negatively related to firm investment but its interactive term with Tobin’s Q is positively related to corporate investment. These findings imply that independent directors can help firms reduce overinvestment and improve investment efficiency. Moreover, the research findings indicate that these effects of independent directors are stronger for financially constrained firms.

The extant literature shows that independent directors are an effective mechanism to reduce agency problems in firm decisions and operating performance. However, there has been no research on the role of independent directors in corporate investment policy.

This chapter analyzes how the macro-environment determines corporate dividend decisions. First, political factors including political uncertainty, economic policy uncertainty, political corruption, and democracy may have two opposite effects on dividend decisions. For example, firms learn democratic practices to improve their corporate governance, but dividend policy may be the outcome of strong corporate governance or the substitute for poor corporate governance. Second, firms in countries of high national income, low inflation, and highly developed stock markets tend to pay more dividends. A monetary restriction (expansion) reduces (increases) dividend payments, as economic shocks like financial crises and the COVID-19 may negatively affect corporate dividend policy through higher external financial constraint, economic uncertainty, and agency costs. On the other hand, they may positively influence corporate dividend policy through agency costs of debt, shareholders' bird-in-hand motive, substitution of weak corporate governance, and signaling motive. Third, social factors including national culture, religion, and language affect dividend decisions since they govern both managers' and shareholders' views and behaviors. Fourth, firms tend to reduce their dividends when they face stronger pressure to reduce pollution, produce environment-friendly products, or follow a green policy. Finally, firms have high levels of dividends when shareholders are strongly protected by laws. However, firms tend to pay more dividends in countries of weak creditor rights since dividend payments are a substitute for poor legal protection of creditors. Furthermore, corporate dividend policy changes when tax laws change the comparative tax rates on dividends and capital gains.

This paper investigates how the global financial crisis changes the effects of state ownership and foreign ownership on corporate cash holdings in an emerging market.

We employ an interactive term between state ownership (foreign ownership) and a crisis dummy to analyze how the global financial crisis determines the effect of state ownership (foreign ownership) on corporate cash holdings.

With a research sample including 5,493 observations from 621 listed firms over the period 2007–2017, we find that state ownership (foreign ownership) is negatively (positively) related to corporate cash holdings and the effect of state ownership (foreign ownership) is stronger (weaker) during the crisis period. Moreover, the increase in the effect of state ownership is larger in financially unconstrained firms.

Prior research shows that the effects of state ownership and foreign ownership on corporate cash holdings in emerging markets are still debatable. This paper extends this line of research by investigating how the global financial crisis – an exogenous shock – changes these effects.

The paper investigates the effect of corruption on corporate investment efficiency around the world.

The sample includes 218,350 observations from 30,074 firms across 42 countries. The authors measure corruption based on the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) from Transparency International, Corruption Control Index (CCI) from the World Bank and Corruption Index from the International Country Risk Guide.

The authors find that corruption is negatively related to investment efficiency. The robustness checks with different measures of corporate investment and alternative regression approaches show consistent findings. Moreover, the authors also find that the effect of corruption is stronger (weaker) in strong (weak) shareholder protection countries.

The paper has two important contributions to the literature. First, it shows that corruption environment is also a determinant of corporate investment efficiency. Second, legal protection of shareholders can mitigate the negative effect of corruption on corporate investment efficiency.

本研究擬探討世界各地貪污腐敗對企業投資效率的影響。

研究樣本涵蓋42個國家，30,074間公司，218,350個觀察。測量貪污腐敗的方法乃基於國際透明組織的腐敗感知指數、世界銀行的腐敗控制指數和國際國家風險指南的貪污指數。

研究結果顯示、貪污與投資效率成負相關。以企業投資的各種測量方法、以及用其他的回歸分析方法來進行的強度檢驗，均顯示一致的結果。而且，我們亦發現，在對股東的保障較大的國家，貪污所帶來的影響也會較大；同樣地、對股東的保障較小的國家，貪污的影響也相應會較輕微。

本研究對文獻有兩個重要的貢獻。首先，研究證明了貪污腐敗的環境亦是企業投資效率的決定因素；其次，研究亦證明給股東的法律保護會減低貪污對企業投資效率所帶來的負面影響。

This paper investigates the effect of economic policy uncertainty on value of cash before and after the global financial crisis.

We investigate the relationship between economic policy uncertainty and value of excess cash based on the valuation model of Fama and French (1998). Baker et al. (2016) news-based index (BBD index) is employed to calculate measures of economic policy uncertainty. Our research sample includes 103,474 observations from 11,000 firms across 19 countries over the period 2004–2016.

We find that economic policy uncertainty is negatively “positively” related to value of cash in the pre-crisis “post-crisis” period. Moreover, we also document that the positive effect of economic policy uncertainty in the post-crisis period is stronger in financially constrained firms.

While prior studies find a relationship between economic policy uncertainty and cash levels or the effect of firm-level uncertainty on value of cash, this paper shows how economic policy uncertainty as an institutional environment factor affects value of cash. Moreover, it documents that economic policy uncertainty has opposite effects on value of cash before and after the global financial crisis.

本研究旨在探討經濟政策不確定性在全球金融危機之前及之後對現金價值的影響。

我們基於法馬及佛倫奇(1998) (Fama and French (1998)) 的估值模型，來探討經濟政策不確定性與過剩現金價值的關係。我們採用了貝克等人(2016) (Baker et al. (2016)) 以新聞訊息為基礎的指數 (BBD指數) 、來計算經濟政策不確定性的程度。我們的研究樣本包括橫跨19個國家、涵蓋期為2004年至2016年、取自11,000間公司之103,474個觀察。

我們發現經濟政策不確定性與現金價值在危機前時期成負相關,在危機後時期則成正相關。而且,我們也記錄了在危機後時期經濟政策不確定性的正面影響於財務受限的公司會較大的情況。

過去的研究發現了經濟政策不確定性與現金水平之間存有關係、及企業層面的不確定性對現金價值的影響。唯本研究顯示了經濟政策不確定性作為一機構環境因素,如何影響現金價值；同時，亦記錄了經濟政策不確定性在全球金融危機之前及之後對現金價值會有相反影響的情況。

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of monetary loosening on corporate investment in an emerging market.

The paper begins this study by using a dynamic model to investigate the effect of monetary loosening on corporate investment. This paper uses money supply growth as a proxy for monetary loosening, as the State Bank of Vietnam relies mainly on a quantity-based policy. Next, this paper continues to analyze whether cash holdings are able to mitigate this effect. Finally, this paper examines the effect of monetary loosening on investment smoothing and the mitigating role of cash holding. The research sample includes 4,868 from 617 firms. This paper uses different regression techniques (i.e. pooled ordinary least squares clustered by firm, fixed effects, random effects and system generalized method of moments).

The research findings show that money supply growth is positively related to both corporate investment and investment smoothing. The effect of monetary loosening on corporate investment is mitigated by corporate cash holding. Moreover, this paper finds that the mitigating effect of cash holdings is stronger for financially constrained firms and non-state-owned enterprises.

Prior studies only focus on corporate investment under-tightening monetary policy; however, there is no research on firm investment under monetary loosening in an emerging market.

This chapter presents both main arguments of dividend policy theories and their empirical evidence. According to Miller and Modigliani (1961), dividend decisions are not relevant to firm value in a perfect capital market. Nevertheless, there are several market frictions in the real world (e.g., information asymmetry, agency problems, transaction costs, firm maturity, catering incentives and taxes). Therefore, academics use them to develop theories which help them explain corporate dividend decisions. Particularly, signaling theory considers dividend payments as a signal about firms' future prospects since outside investors face information disadvantage. “Bird-in-hand” theory argues that investors prefer dividends to capital gains since the former have lower risk than the latter. Agency theory is developed from the conflict of interest between corporate managers and shareholders. Corporate managers have high incentives to restrict dividend payments. Furthermore, transaction cost theory and pecking order theory posit that firms prefer internal to external funds. This drives firms to hold more cash and pay less dividends. Life cycle theory explains dividend policy by firm maturity. Mature firms have fewer investment opportunities, and thus, they tend to pay more dividends. Catering theory states that dividend decisions are based on investors' demand. Firms pay more dividends since investors prefer dividends and assign higher value to dividend payers. Tax clientele theory argues that firms that have corporate dividend policy rely on the comparative income tax rates for dividends and capital gains. Under the tax discriminations against dividends, firms tend to restrict their dividends in order to increase their stock prices.

This chapter analyzes how the industry environment determines corporate dividend decisions. First, common participants in the product market are competitors, suppliers, and customers. These micro-stakeholders create competitive pressures on firms and thus affect their current and future performance. Competitors influence dividend decisions through three mechanisms, namely predation threat, corporate governance, and imitation. Predation threat reduces firms' incentives to pay dividends when facing high rivalry. Competition helps firms improve corporate governance. However, strong corporate governance may increase or decrease dividend payments since dividend policy may be the outcome of strong corporate governance or the substitute for weak corporate governance, respectively. Besides, firms tend to imitate their industry peers in dividend policy. Second, as a financial policy, dividend policy is also affected by participants in the financial market like investors, creditors, and auditors. These financial stakeholders' behaviors are important to stock prices. Due to the agency problem, creditors have high incentives to restrict firm's dividend payments in order to protect their benefits. On the other hand, creditors are effective external monitors who help firms improve their corporate governance. Outside investors affect corporate dividend policy through their valuation. Firms pay more dividends if investors prefer dividends to capital gains. Auditors play the role of a third-party monitor, and thus, they help firms reduce managers' expropriation of shareholders and improve the quality of accounting information. Furthermore, we also investigate dividend policy of regulated industries in both financial sector (banking, insurance, and real estate) and utilities sector (energy, telecommunications, and transportation).

This chapter introduces dividend smoothing, presents theories to explain dividend smoothing behavior, and analyzes how different levels of business environment affect dividend smoothing. First, dividend smoothing describes a mechanism in which a firm is reluctant to reduce dividends and only increases dividends when its earnings increase permanently. In practice, dividend smoothing behavior is found in both developed and developing countries. Firms in developed countries are more likely to smooth dividends than those in developing countries. Second, although Miller and Modigliani (1961) posit that investors are indifferent between stable and unstable dividend payments in a perfect environment, market frictions in the real world make stable and unstable dividends have different effects on firm value. Three common frictions are information asymmetry, agency problem, and investors' demand for income smoothing. Due to information asymmetry between insiders and outsiders, firms tend to smooth their dividends to signal outside investors about their quality. In addition, dividend smoothing may be the substitute for weak corporate governance and/or the outcome of free cash absorption behavior. Besides, dividends are more convenient for investors' consumption; therefore, firms are more likely to smooth dividends in order to satisfy investors' demand for smooth income. Finally, as a special dividend decision, dividend smoothing is also affected by an internal micro (industry) and macro-environment. Dividend smoothing theories are the behind mechanisms to explain these effects.