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Earnings management is a means by which managers manipulate earnings to conceal the true performance of a company. The characteristics of the board of directors can also influence firm performance. This study applies data envelopment analysis (DEA) and the Tobin regression model to investigate the influence of earnings management and board characteristics on company efficiency. The data sample includes 396 Taiwanese electronics and biotechnology companies from 2009 to 2017. The results indicate that earnings management has an insignificant influence on company efficiency with mixed results on the interactions between earnings management and board characteristics. When companies practiced earnings management, director experiences, a higher proportion of female directors, and a higher number of board meetings increased company efficiency. In contrast, a higher number of independent directors and a higher attendance rate of the directors at the board meeting decreased company efficiency. The results of this study suggest that board diversity, more female directors, and meetings could still improve firm performance despite companies’ engagement in earnings management.

Banking consolidation is a global trend, but in Taiwan, after the failure of the Second Financial Reform, it does not have a clear policy for bank mergers. This paper investigates whether mergers influence the cost efficiency of banks in Taiwan, and our results suggest that the government should utilize market mechanism to encourage FHC or large banks" mergers. We use the method of stochastic frontier approach (SFA) to investigate the uncertain relationship between merger and the cost efficiency of Taiwanese banks. Based on Battese and Coelli (1995), we use maximum likelihood estimation method to estimate the stochastic cost efficiency model and the inefficient model simultaneously. We find that, for Taiwanese banks, technology efficiency increases with time by lowering operation cost; cost efficiency decreases right after merger, and has to wait for three years to regain efficiency. The larger banks and FHC banks benefit more from cost savings than smaller banks. JEL Classification: G21, G34

This paper examines the impact of political connection and board diversity on company performance. The sample is composed of information on Chinese‐listed companies from 2008 to 2016. We find a significantly negative correlation between political connection and company performance. Board diversity also has a significantly negative impact on company performance. However, when the impact of the interaction between political connection and board diversity is taken into consideration, we find that it can increase the performance of the firm. Our results imply that political connectedness and board diversity together play a valuable role in a firm's performance.

In order to explore the potential influence of new mobile payment services on the Ephesus model developed by Kao and Hwang (2008), we investigated the relative performance of 19 Taiwanese banks from 2018 to 2021. The network efficiency was divided into two parts: management efficiency and profitability efficiency. Only one bank achieved total efficiency from 2019 to 2021. The stage efficiencies showed increments during the first three years (2018–2020), but they declined in 2021. Most banks had low efficiency in the management stage and high efficiency in the profitability stage, suggesting that there are weaknesses in the management of physical resources but high awareness that mobile payment services can be exploited to achieve high profitability. Our results prove that mobile payment is a potential and profitable new service that Taiwanese banks should take advantage of. Comparing the results between the CCR model and the NDEA model, we observed that the NDEA model has more explanatory power, as it provides insight into the internal structure of the working process of Taiwanese banks.

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