This article uses bibliographic mapping to identify the fifty most influential articles in the Tier 1 Finance journals since their inception, and to visualize the conceptual interrelations among them. Over the last 50 years, the field of finance has developed from a few publications on Asset Pricing into six distinct genealogies. We review each of these to ascertain their main contributions to research in finance, and to outline knowledge gaps and future research directions. We closely examine publications since 2010 to identify emerging research trends. The article sets an agenda for finance research in the 21 st century.

This paper uses bibliographic mapping techniques to map the research conversation in four Pacific Basin accounting journals listed on the Social Sciences Citation Index (Abacus, Accounting and Finance, Australian Accounting Review, and the Australian Journal of Management). We identify the main research streams in these journals as Accounting Standards, Environmental Accounting, Earnings Management, Disclosure, Conservatism, Auditing, Impairment, Cost of Capital, and Corporate Governance. We critically review each research stream, identify emerging research trends, and suggest an agenda for future research on accounting in the Pacific Basin.

This paper studies the determinants behind Chinese companies' decisions to make seasoned equity offerings (SEO). Probit regressions are employed and a Monte Carlo simulation method is used to confirm the non-existence of the spurious correlation problem found in traditional models of capital structure. Evidence is found to confirm the privilege of state-controlled enterprises to access equity. A corporate governance indicator based on the completion of the Split Share Structure Reform is also introduced. However, no evidence to support the importance of corporate governance is found. The results of this study imply that in a country where the state dominates the intermediation of capital, investors and thus companies are less sensitive to the quality of corporate governance. Different factors have been observed to affect Chinese firms' SEO decisions prior to and post the Split Share Structure Reform. The influence from the state has also been weakened after the reform, particularly after the global financial crisis.

This paper presents a systematic review of 73 influential publications among 667 journal articles published in the in the Asia-Pacific finance literature from 2011-2015. We map how the top 73 publications are related in terms of their citation relationships and identify eight different research fields, or lines of enquiry: (1) Corporate Finance, (2) Asset Pricing, (3) Conditional Asset Pricing, (4) Research on Anomalies, (5) Market Microstructure Research, (6) Factor Models, as well as two novel research streams, (7) Research Process and (8) Research on Frontiers in Finance. Focusing on the research frontiers in finance, our paper identifies emerging research trends and pathways for future research in the following areas: (1) Environmental Finance, (2) Modern Markets, (3) Behavioural Finance, (4) Qualitative Methods, and (5) Equity and Diversity. We highlight possible pathways for researchers to build on existing knowledge and pursue opportunities for innovative and exciting new research contributing to an expansion of the research frontiers.

This study assesses distorting effect of financial constraints on the inverse relationship between internal and external finance by examining impact of an exogenous financing shock (i.e. a regulation released in China in 2008) on dividend policies in a quasi-natural experimental setting. Our result shows that in the absence of the regulation, the inverse relationship holds. However, the relation is twisted by the 2008 regulation. Compared with unconstrained firms, financially constrained firms are more willing to pay dividends and are more restrained to reduce cash dividends after the regulation, despite the fact that their external financing capacities are further constrained.

Corporate governance and thus overall investor protection in China improved after the Split Share Structure Reform and the release of the new company law in 2005. This study examines the impact of improved corporate governance and investor protection on the market's reaction to seasoned equity offering (SEO) announcements in China. The market reacts to post‐2005 SEOs positively, while it reacts to pre‐2005 SEOs negatively. The different market reactions are attributed to the market's different perceptions of firms' intentions behind SEO decisions – that is, investors are more optimistic and have more trust in SEO issuers when they believe they are better protected.

This paper studies the capital structure of Chinese SEO issuers, from the perspective of equity. The traditional model is subject to several problems including spurious correlation, cumulative measure and endogeneity. System GMM (generalised method of moments) is superior to the traditional model. Corporate governance is positively correlated to firm equity level; however, it does not affect incremental managerial adjustments to equity. In addition, state control positively influences equity level but has a negative effect on incremental managerial adjustment. Mixed evidence is found for the established capital structure theories in the Chinese context.

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