The paper aims to investigate the linkage between some corporate governance mechanism such as board characteristics, ownership structure and corporate financial leverage in an emerging market, Egypt. To achieve the objectives of this study, we use a sample of 36 non-financial firms selected from the more actively traded 50 listed Egyptian firms in the Egyptian Stock Exchange (EGX) covering the period from 2007 to 2011. Measures of corporate financial leverage employed are the total debt ratio, the long-term debt ratio and the short-term debt ratio. The explanatory variables of corporate characteristics are board size, outside non-executive directors, CEO duality, and board female proportion. The measures of ownership structure include managerial ownership, institutional ownership, block holder's ownership and governmental ownership. Similarly, the effect of some control variables like firm size, profitability, growth and tangibility has been also examined. The multiple regression models (OLS) were used to analyze the data. Results show that institutional ownership and governmental ownership are significantly positively related to corporate leverage, whereas board size, board female, and block holding are found to be significantly negatively correlated. Although Egyptian firms still have weak corporate governance mechanisms compared to firms in developing countries, the empirical findings suggest that board characteristics and ownership structure playing an important role in deciding the Egyptian corporate financial leverage.

Family-controlled firms are a unique form of business because of the special nature of its ownership structure, management style, and financing needs. Moreover, these firms face difficulty in achieving a balanced mix of available financing alternatives (i.e., debt and equity), and this mix has a direct impact on the firms’ profitability, risk, and value. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to review the literature on how family involvement in business via ownership, management, and control affects capital structure decisions. The review showed that in a comparison with nonfamily businesses, family-controlled firms on average have higher debt levels. Additionally, family ownership is positively associated with debt financing, and the participation of family members in a firm’s top management leads to an increase in the firm’s overall debt level. Insights generated from the current study highlight the critical influence of family involvement in business on key financial policies such as capital structure decisions.

This paper employs GRS test to empirically compare the applicability of five alternatives of asset pricing models for 55 shares listed on the EGX100 for the Egyptian stock market: 1) the CAPM, 2) the Fama-French three factor model, 3) the Cahart four factor model, 4) liquidity-augmented four factor model, 5) and the five factor model (liquidity and momentum-augmented Fama-French three factor model. The sample is split into six portfolios sorted on size and book-to market ratio and 45 shares are excluded due to data unavailability. Our results based on GRS (1989) show evidence that Fama-French model is the best and reject the other models.

The study aims to investigate the relationship between daily price limits and stock volatility, trading volume, delayed adjustment of stock prices, and its fair value. To achieve this goal, we used the data of the listed firms in EGX30. We analyzed the data using descriptive analysis then we applied General linear model, ARCH and GARCH models. Based on our analysis results show a positive relationship between upper daily limit and stock volatility, a positive relationship between daily price limits (upper limit-lower limit) and trading volume, a positive relationship between upper daily limit and the return between the closing price and the opening price on the same day, a positive relationship between lower daily limit and the return between the closing price and the opening price in the next day, a negative relationship between upper daily limit and the return between the closing price and the opening price in the next day, and a positive relationship between daily stock price limits and the fair value.

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