The purpose of this research is to analyze the association between corporate governance and firm performance. Specifically, it examines the impact of CEO duality on board characteristics and its relationship with firm performance through dynamic penal estimation. The findings of this research are based on a sample of 191 listed non-financial firms over the period 2004-2014. We document that corporate governance plays a pivotal role in determining the financial performance of firms operating in Pakistan. Consistent with past studies, findings of this research also show some statistical variations among the sampled firms (large and small size). CEO duality compromises the efficiency of board independence. Further, the non-linear relationship of managerial ownership with performance is also depicted through the results of this study. Keywords: Corporate governance, accounting-market based measures, firm performance

This study tests the semi-strong form of market efficiency by investigating the reaction of stock prices to dividend announcements. It analyzes cash, stock, and simultaneous cash and stock dividend announcements of 79 companies listed on the Karachi Stock Exchange from July 2004 to June 2007. Abnormal returns from the market model are evaluated for statistical significance using the t-test and Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test. The findings suggest negligible abnormal returns for cash dividend announcements. However, the average abnormal and cumulative average abnormal returns for stock and simultaneous cash and stock dividend announcements are mostly positive and statistically significant.

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This study attempts to examine the predictability of Google search volume (GSV) and to construct an appropriate investor sentiment index for Islamic stock markets for seven United States (US) Islamic stock indices. Using principal component analysis, we construct an appropriate investor sentiment index for Islamic stock markets that depicts more persistent and higher R-squared values for all these seven US Islamic stocks indices compared to the original Financial and Economic Attitudes Revealed by Search (FEARS) sentiment index of Da, Engelberg, and Gao (2015). The observed results can be attributed to the construction of our investor sentiment index as we have included keywords active in the Islamic stock markets. The findings of this study provide strong predictability evidence for our new sentiment index in the Islamic stock markets.