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This study aims to investigate how the presence of female CEOs (FCEOs) affects investment efficiency in emerging economy, where female participation in business activities is limited.

This paper investigates the impact of CEO gender on investment efficiency by using investment efficiency measures proposed by Biddle et al. (2009), Chen et al. (2011) and Chen et al. (2013).

The findings suggest that FCEOs are associated with high level of investment efficiency. FCEOs improve corporate governance, streamline management and reduce inefficient investment decisions. In addition, FCEOs focus more on curbing underinvestment than overinvestment when making investment decisions. Furthermore, high financial reporting quality (FRQ) strengthens the effect of FCEOs on investment efficiency. The results suggest that FCEOs do not ameliorate the investment efficiency of state-owned enterprises.

This study enhances our understanding of the effects of FCEOs on corporate investment decisions in a male-dominated society. Efficient use of resources is vital from corporate and societal perspectives. Emerging economies are characterized by the unstable political and economic environment and low participation of females in decision-making. Hence, these economies require efficient utilization of resources. This study also sheds light on the role of FCEOs in curtailing underinvestment in emerging economies. It proves that FRQ is important in emerging economies because it strengthens the governance role of FCEOs.

The study of the relationship between external auditing services and investment deviation in a French setting has received relatively little research attention thus far. There are insufficient indicators to measure audit quality and then have a measurable link to investment efficiency. This study is motivated by such a research gap as well as the important role of auditing services in assuring investment efficiency. The purpose of this study is to test whether a good audit quality service improves corporate investment awareness in French-listed companies and contributes to establishing a comprehensive analysis framework for inefficient investment and how audit services have become an important tool to reduce the investment deviation of listed companies in France.

Based on a sample of 89 non-financial French firms listed on the Stoxx 600 Index from 2015 to 2021, this study uses feasible generalised least squares (FGLS) regressions to study the relationship between investment deviation and auditing service quality.

After running an FGLS regression model for two firm groups (overinvestment and overinvestment groups) and testing for a set of control variables, especially COVID-19, the findings show a non-linear correlation between audit service and corporate investment deviation. Both underinvestment and overinvestment decisions are negatively and statistically significantly impacted by audit indicators. Furthermore, involving a high-quality specialised auditor may enhance overall monitoring and lead to a lower investment deviation level. Overall, the empirical results show that a high-quality audit service enhances the investment efficiency of French-indexed companies.

This study offers crucial information that audit regulators can use to better appreciate the advantages of high audit quality and to take seriously the policy issues that affect it. Board members are urged to provide excellent audit quality that improves investment efficiency with careful consideration.

This study contributes to the existing audit literature by illuminating the effect of audit quality services on investment deviation to show a deeper understanding of the factors that contribute to the differences in prior studies’ findings in the field of audit quality impacts.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of investment efficiency on cost of equity capital.

Prior research indicated that any governance mechanism which reduces the agency conflict reduces the cost of equity capital. This study provides empirical evidence that investment efficiency represents such governance mechanism which reduces agency conflict and hence cost of equity. The authors use price earning growth ratio (Easton, 2004) and Ohlson and Juettner-Nauroth (2005) model for the measurement of cost of equity while investment efficiency measure of Biddle et al. (2009) have been employed to examine the association. We also use Chen et al. (2013) measure of investment efficiency for robustness.

The results show that investment efficiency is negatively associated with cost of equity. It was also found that there is a strong relationship of investment efficiency with cost of equity for non-state-owned enterprises (NSOEs), while no significant relationship is found for state-owned enterprises. Furthermore, overinvestment is significantly associated with cost of equity capital. However, no significant relationship was found between underinvestment and cost of equity.

The results provide empirical support to the argument that investment efficiency acts as a mechanism which represents lower agency conflict. Moreover, the findings provide evidence that government act as “deep pocket” while NSOEs are punished by investors for inefficient resource allocation. This study also proposes that there is a positive relationship between overinvestment and cost of equity.

The authors show that there is a negative relationship between economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and firm overinvestment using Korean data from 2007 to 2016. Since Jensen (1986) shows that a firm's free cash flow is an important factor of overinvestment, the authors examine how free cash flow influences the sensitivity of overinvestment to EPU. The authors find that a high level of free cash flow attenuates the negative effect of EPU on overinvestment. The authors find that there is no significant difference in the effect of EPU on overinvestment between Chaebol (Korean family-run conglomerates) and non-Chaebol firms, which is consistent with the literature that the features of Chaebol are weakening.