Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how corporate governance moderates the relationship between macroeconomic uncertainty and corporate capital structure. Design/methodology/approach: This paper employs the two-step system generalized method of moments regression, considering a sample of 907 listed non-financial firms from seven Asia Pacific countries during the period 2004-2014. Findings: This study finds that macroeconomic uncertainty has a significant negative impact on the capital structure decisions of firms. The results also reveal that the overall effect of macroeconomic uncertainty on capital structure among firms with better governance quality is significantly negative. The evidence suggests that corporate governance acts as an effective mechanism to curb the usage of leverage during times of high volatility. Further analysis shows that board independence, the separation between the roles of CEO and chairman of the board and blockholders' ownership are effective governance mechanisms, whereas similar observations do not hold for board size and institutional ownership. Research limitations/implications: The findings of this study may be useful to policy makers to formulate appropriate policies to mitigate the adverse effects caused by macroeconomic uncertainty. This is important because macroeconomic uncertainty may have potential destabilizing effects on a country's or region's development by jeopardizing the firms' ability to formulate sound investment, production and financing decisions. Additionally, the results suggest that good governance quality can act as a check and balance to ensure that firms use less leverage when they are facing volatility in the macroeconomic environment. These findings could help to reinforce the importance of good governance among policy makers of a country as well as managers of firms. Originality/value: The authors make the first attempt to examine the moderating effect of corporate governance on the relationship between macroeconomic uncertainty and corporate capital structure.

This study investigates the determinants of corporate capital structure of various sectors in the Bursa Malaysia Main Market with the aim to establish whether the determinants of capital structure can be explained by either the trade-off or the pecking order theory. This study also examines whether there are any differences between the regressions for any two sectors or not. This study applies both the ordinary least squares (OLS) and the seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) estimators to estimate the leverage models, and subsequently determines the efficiency of each estimator. The results indicate that profitability, asset tangibility, growth opportunities, and firm size are important determinants of corporate capital structure. However, the signs of the regression coefficients suggest that the trade-off and pecking order theories are complementary. Moreover, the importance of some of these determinants differs across sectors. In most cases of the regression analyses between two sectors, the SUR estimator is found to be more efficient in explaining the determinants of capital structure among the various sectors. Hence, this study concludes that the SUR method could serve as a useful alternative methodology for capital structure research.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine how business founders influence the performance of family firms in developing countries in Asia. Design/methodology/approach The pooled ordinary least squares regression is used on a sample of 134 public listed family firms from four developing countries in Asia during the period 2004–2014. This study also conducts sub-period analyses where the study period is divided into three sub-periods, i.e. before, during and after the global financial crisis (GFC). Findings This study finds that founder-led family firms outperform family firms led by nonfounders for the full study period. The results for the sub-period analyses also show that founder-led family firms outperform nonfounder-led family firms for the pre-crisis and during crisis periods. Finally, this study finds no evidence supporting the superior performance of founder-led family firms post-GFC. Originality/value Because family firm is one of the most fundamental forms of business organization in the world, policymakers have great concerns about how business founders influence the performance of these firms. Nonetheless, the existing research on family firms is chiefly concentrated on developed countries but there is a paucity of studies being conducted in the context of developing countries. Moreover, previous research has only considered the performance of these firms during normal or turbulent times but no prior studies have compared the firm performance during normal, turbulent and recovery periods. It is the aim of this paper to address these research gaps by using a new and more recent set of data.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of virtual currency (VC) development on financial stocks’ value in selected Asian equity markets and the moderating role of investor attention on this relationship. Design/methodology/approach The pooled ordinary least squares regression is used on a sample of 138 listed financial firms from four emerging Asian countries for the period 2016–2020. Findings This study finds that changes in VC values have greater spillover effects on the values of financial stocks in countries which do not recognize the legitimacy of VCs than in countries which do, due to the lack of breadth and depth of the former markets. Moreover, this paper also reports evidence of the greater moderating role of investor attention on this relationship in countries which do not recognize the legitimacy of VCs than in countries which do. Originality/value Although numerous studies have been conducted on the influence of VCs on stock performance, majority of these studies did not distinguish whether the sample countries being studied actually recognize the legitimacy of VC transactions or not. Moreover, extant literature has not considered the moderating role of investor attention on this relationship. It is the aim of this study to address these research voids by using a refined three-factor theory model of capital asset pricing model incorporating VCs to better represent stock performance in the digital economy era.

This data article provides macroeconomic data that can be used to generate macroeconomic volatility. The data cover a sample of seven selected countries in the Asia Pacific region for the period 2004–2014, including both developing and developed countries. This dataset was generated to enhance our understanding of the sources of macroeconomic volatility affecting the countries in this region. Although the Asia Pacific region continues to remain as the most dynamic part of the world's economy, it is not spared from various sources of macroeconomic volatility through the decades. The reported data cover 15 types of macroeconomic data series, representing three broad categories of indicators that can be used to proxy macroeconomic volatility. They are indicators that account for macroeconomic volatility (i.e. volatility as a macroeconomic outcome), domestic sources of macroeconomic volatility and external sources of macroeconomic volatility. In particular, the selected countries are Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines, which are regarded as developing countries, while Singapore, Japan and Australia are developed countries. Despite the differences in level of economic development, these countries were affected by similar sources of macroeconomic volatility such as the Asian Financial Crisis and the Global Financial Crisis. These countries were also affected by other similar external turbulence arising from factors such as the global economic slowdown, geopolitical risks in the Middle East and volatile commodity prices. Nonetheless, there were also sources of macroeconomic volatility which were peculiar to certain countries only. These were generally domestic sources of volatility such as political instability (for Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines), natural disasters and anomalous weather conditions (for Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Japan and Australia) and over-dependence on the electronic sector (for Singapore).

Firms often face uncertainties which may affect corporate financing decisions. As uncertainty has potential adverse and destabilizing effects on firms, this study is carried out to examine the influence of firm-specific and macroeconomic uncertainty on firm leverage, short-term and long-term debt. Based on a panel of Philippine listed firms from 2004-2014, we adopt a dynamic panel data estimation technique, namely the Generalized Method of Moments to conduct our analyses. The results provide strong evidence of the adverse influence of firm-specific and macroeconomic uncertainty on leverage. Furthermore, the results indicate that while short-term debt is adversely impacted by firm-specific and macroeconomic uncertainty, long-term debt is merely influenced by macroeconomic uncertainty. This implies that although Philippine firms consider firm-specific and macroeconomic uncertainty in their short-run financing decisions, they are primarily concerned about macroeconomic uncertainty in the long-run. This paper addresses the paucity of research that has been conducted in this area, particularly in the context of developing countries. The findings provide important insights into the way firms derive their short-and long-run corporate financing decisions when encountering uncertainties. The insights can guide policymakers to formulate suitable policies to ensure stability in the business and macroeconomic environment.

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