Ownership Structure,Agency Relationship and Dividend Policy in unlisted Cameroonian Companies

Financial decisions in general and dividend policy in particular are based on the relationship between the stakeholders.Also,analyzing the dividend policy in companies that are not listed on the stock market remains important.The object of our study is to analyze the agency relationship in the link between the ownership structure and the distribution of the dividend at the level of Cameroonian companies.We opted for a qualitative and quantitative study.The statistical tests carried out(with 67 companies)are the comparison test of means and the analysis of variance with one factor(using Statistic Package for Social Science[SPSS]software).The results of this research show that regular and irregular dividend payments lead to a low level of conflict between majority-minority shareholders and shareholder-managers.This leads to a negative relationship between the concentration,the ownership identity,and the dividend policy.

Effect of family control on corporate dividend policy of firms in Pakistan

This study examines the impact of family control on the dividend policy of firms in Pakistan,covering the period from 2009 to 2016.It also investigates whether family control moderates the impact of firm-specific factors on the dividend policy.The GMM model for panel data estimation is used.The mean difference univariate analysis shows that family firms differ from nonfamily firms based on financial characteristics.The multivariate analysis shows that family firms pay lower dividends than nonfamily firms.Besides,firm size inversely affects the dividend policy,whereas tangibility positively affects it.Moreover,family control does not moderate the impact of all firm-specific factors on the dividend policy.Overall,family control,size,and tangibility are found to be the main determinants of the dividend policy in Pakistan.

The Impact of Accounting Information Quality on Corporate Labor Investment Efficiency:Evidence from China

As an important part of the enterprise information system,accounting information plays a significant role in enterprise management decision-making,This study investigates the impact of accounting information quality on corporate labor investment efficiency.Using a sample of Chinese listed firms,we show that higher accounting information quality is associated with higher labor investment efficiency(i.e.,a lower deviation of labor investment from the expected employment level justified by economic fundamentals).Firms with higher accounting information quality reduce underinvestment and overinvestment in labor by alleviating financial constraints and agency conflicts.Cross-sectional tests indicate that this effect is more pronounced among non-state-owned enterprises and firms with higher labor adjustment costs.The robustness test shows that our results are robust to alternative proxies,endogeneity concerns,and controls for non-labor investments.This study sheds light on how enterprise information systems influence management decision-making practices from the perspective of accounting information quality.

Why Greater Cash Holdings and Short-Term Debt Simultaneously Persist？ The Case of Transition Economy

This study observes and explores a puzzle in Chinese firms whereby both cash holdings and short-term debt simultaneously account for more than 20% of total assets for at least two consecutive years over the sample period. This phenomenon conflicts with the principle of corporate value maximization, and is not clearly explained by the classical theories in corporate finance. Based on the implications in the extant literature and discussions of institutional constraints of the transition economy in China, this paper develops four hypotheses that are involved with agency conflicts between the largest shareholders and creditors and the formation of this puzzling financial structure. The empirical analyses suggest that the largest shareholders with tunneling motives seek to hold more cash to serve their private interests and/or the consequent operational deficit of the listed corporations. To the ends, these corporations tend to manage the timing of short term debt financing to increase cash reserves temporarily at the end of year. Essentially, greater cash holdings on the balance sheet of these corporations related with the puzzle become a misleading signal for potential creditors, possibly contributing to the refinancing of short-term debt of these listed firms for the following year. Hence, the puzzling financial structure is connected with the timing of debt financing and adverse selection of creditors. This study enriches the stream of literature on cash holdings and debt maturity, and provides new evidence on the impact of agency problems of the largest shareholders on the association between cash holdings and debt maturity in the context of a transition economy.

Contraction flexibility, operating leverage, and financial leverage

This study investigates the impacts of contraction flexibility and operating leverage onfinancial leverage from the perspective of the agency conflict between shareholders and debtholders.In a continuous-time real option framework,we demonstrate that share-holders'contraction flexibility may have an adverse effect on financial leverage,and that the substitution relation between operating leverage andfinancial leverage is persistent or pronounced in the presence of contraction flexibility.The evidence from Chinese listedfirms not only supports our theoretical predictions well,but also offers a method to examine the agency conflict hypothesis.We suggest that the high proportion of bank loans or long-term debt in total liabilities can help levered firms alleviate the agency problem arising from contraction decisions.