Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the importance of market imperfection, namely, variation in managerial ability (MA), on dividend policy in China. The authors focus on the Chinese market as it is dominated by state-owned enterprises and test whether the association between MA and dividend policy varies systematically with the degree of state ownership. Design/methodology/approach To measure MA, this study exploits a novel measure developed by Demerjian et al. (2012) to estimate how efficiently manager utilizes firm’s resources. Manager efficiency is defined in terms of output a manager produces based on inputs available within firm. Findings The authors find that relationship between MA and dividend policy is primarily driven by non-state own enterprises compare to state own enterprises, more prevalent for financially unconstrained firms with strong balance sheet and more pronounced under high marketized groups as compare to low marketized groups. These finding are robust under battery of robustness checks. This research adds new insight for the policy makers and investors to pay more attention on MA. Practical implications This research adds new insight for the policy makers and investors to pay more attention on MA. Originality/value This study augments the dividend policy literature by relaxing perfect capital market assumption of Miller and Modigliani, and neo-classic view of firms by incorporating a new novel factor – variation in MA – and applies it to the emerging market of China.

Purpose Numerous researchers have developed theories and studies to uncover the issues pertinent to dividend policy dynamics, but it is still one of the unresolved problems of finance. The purpose of this paper is to focus on a new dimension, i.e., financial expertise on the corporate board for explaining the dividend policy dynamics in the emerging equity markets of China and Pakistan. Design/methodology/approach The study employs static (fixed effect (FE) and random effect (RE)) and dynamic models – two-step generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation techniques by Arellano and Bond (1991) and Arellano and Bover (1995) – during the timespan from 2009 to 2014. Further, this study re-estimated FE, RE and GMM two-step estimation techniques by excluding the non-dividend-paying companies, and also employed instrumental variable regressing by using two instrumental variables – industry average financial expertise of the board and board size – as proxies for board financial expertise to control the possible endogeneity. Findings The study reveals that Chinese firms having more financial expertise on the board do not take dividends as a control mechanism (substitution hypothesis), while Pakistani firms support the compliment hypothesis and use dividends as a control mechanism to mitigate agency conflict to protect shareholders’ interests and keep additional funds from the manager’s opportunism. Further robustness models also confirm the presence of a significant association between dividend policy and board financial expertise in both equity markets. Originality/value This study introduces the financial expertise on a board as a determinant of dividend policy. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no previous studies have focused on board-level financial expertise as a contributing factor toward dividend policy.

This study contributes to the literature by exploring the relationship between board financial expertise and cash holding policy and further showing how this relation is moderated by multiple large shareholders (MLS). This research is based on agency theory, resource dependence, trade-off, and pecking order theory to confirm how resourceful directors screen cash holding practices. This study selects the 100 listed family firms from the emerging economy of Pakistan for the period of 2006–2017. With the use of static (random and fixed effect estimator) and dynamic (GMM) estimation techniques, this study reveals that the financial expertise of the board members has a significant negative impact on the firms’ cash holding level. Further, moderating effect of MLS between board financial expertise and cash holding is significantly positive due to weak corporate governance mechanisms in family firms. Moreover, the research has implications for developing corporate governance mechanism and the management of liquid assets that corporate management might use for their benefits.

This study is based on the problem that how regulations made by oil and gas regulatory authority influences the companies in oil and gas sector of Pakistan. We identify 13 regulatory changes in oil and sector of Pakistan which broadly includes the announcement related to the formulation, functions and responsibilities of oil and gas authority, deregulation and changes in the prices of oil and gas products, interference of apex court into the oil and gas sector and privatization of oil refineries in emerging market of Pakistan. Well-liked event study methodology is used to uncover the impact of regulation announcement on equity prices in Pakistan. Beside this, we also capture the effect of regulation announcement on the firm performance by introducing the dummy variable in ordinary least framework. In line with the financial and econometric theory criteria, we use the sales growth, leverage, liquidity and tangibility as control variables. Study reveal that regulatory announcements have statistically significant aggregate effect on the oil and gas sector of Pakistan stock exchange. We recommend to the policy makers, managers and regulators that the stock prices of oil and gas companies are more sensitive toward the regulatory announcements related to interference of Supreme Court and regulations concerning to the formulation, functions and responsibilities of oil and gas regulatory authority in Pakistan.

We examine the influence of Economic Policy Uncertainty (E.P.U.) on dividend sustainabilitydividend termination and dividend initiation decision. Using a sample of 1,375 firms over the time span 2000-2015, our main result reveals that during high E.P.U. past dividend payers are more likely to terminate and past nonpayers are less likely to initiate dividends. However, firms that rely more on internal finance (I.F.), generate high return on invested capital (R.O.I.C.) and state-owned enterprises (S.O.E.s) are less exposed to E.P.U. Therefore, negative (positive) effect of E.P.U. on firms' dividend initiation (termination) decision is mitigated by considering firms' heterogeneous characteristics. Results also show that firms having high asset growth, maturity, profitability, cash holdings and high firm value are more likely to initiate and less likely to terminate dividend during period of high E.P.U. In addition, effects of E.P.U. on dividend sustainability is higher for firms functioning in high marketised areas relative to low marketised groups. These findings are robust under different robustness check. Finding confirms that transparent and stable implementation of economic policies can improve sustainability of firm's dividend policy.

PurposeThis study examines the role of the observable and unobservable characteristics of top management on earning management and firm risk in China.Design/methodology/approachThe authors used manager-firm matched panel for 104 non-financial firms listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange between 2010 and 2018. The authors also trace the persistence of managerial financial styles and their active role across two different firms between which managers switched during the sample period.FindingsThe results show that managers' financial styles indeed influence earning management and firm risk and that this influence differs across different managers. These findings are robust when tested for the persistence and active role of managers. Furthermore, individual characteristics such as age, gender, qualification and experience influence managers' financial styles.Practical implicationsGiven their findings, the authors propose that financial analysts and potential investors should not only depend on quantitative data but also consider the individual characteristics of managers when evaluating firms.Social implicationsThe findings of this study carry serious implications for managers, policymakers and potential investors. The findings assist the external auditors in measuring the risk of material misstatement, the various regulatory bodies to assess the quality of financial reporting and the users of financial statements to evaluate the earnings and make further investment decisions considering not only the quantitative data but also the individual characteristics of top managers.Originality/valueThe current study examines the observable and unobservable characteristics of top management on firm risk and earnings management in Chinese context.

The influential work of Markowitz (1952, 1959) provides foundation to modern investment philosophy. Investors can reap the potential benefit of portfolio diversification only if the involved asset classes in investment basket are not perfectly correlated. Objective of this study is to empirically investigate the cointegration among equity market of Pakistan and its major trading partners (China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, UK and USA). Sample period of study starts from 2004 to 2015, on weekly basis. Bivariate cointegration (Johansen, 1991, 1995) analysis reveals that equity market of Pakistan has no long term relationship with any of the equity markets of its major trading partners. Therefore, we recommend to potential investors, portfolio managers, and policy makers that prospective benefit of portfolio diversification can be achieved by investing in the equity markets of major trading partners of Pakistan. Further, they should be vigilant regarding the co-movement among equity markets during portfolio management decisions.

Family businesses are a valuable and well-known corporate name all over the world. However, controlling families have a clear incentive to obtain private benefits via asset expropriation from minority owners and to take activities that diminish the firms' value especially in emerging economies. A strong governance structure protects against these practices and affects long-term success by lowering them. This study adds to this scope by examining the effect of board independence, board size, leverage, dividend distribution, and company size on cash holding in the case of Pakistani listed family firms. Secondary data of sample of 212 family listed firm for the period of 2010-2017 from published annual reports and corporate governance reports are used. The static and dynamic models: fixed effect (F.E.), random effect (RE), and generalized method of moment (GMM) are the critical tools of evaluation in this study. Results show that board independence negatively affects cash holding, indicating that governance plays an active part in family businesses, whereas board size positively impacts cash holding, and demonstrating inefficient governance. Finally, study has policy guidelines for shareholders, and all other stakeholders.