The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of corporate governance quality and ownership structure on the relationship between the agency cost and firm performance. Both the fixed-effects model and a more robust dynamic panel generalized method of moment estimation are applied to Chinese A-listed firms for the years 2008 to 2016. The results show that the agency–performance relationship is positively moderated by (1) corporate governance quality, (2) ownership concentration, and (3) non-state ownership. State ownership has a negative effect on the agency–performance relationship. Various robust tests of an alternative measure of agency cost confirm our main conclusions. The analysis adds to the empirical literature on agency theory by providing useful insights into how corporate governance and ownership concentration can help mitigate agency–performance relationship. It also highlights the impact of ownership type on the relationship between agency cost and firm performance. Our study supports the literature that agency cost and firm performance are negatively related to the Chinese listed firms. The investors should keep in mind the proxies of agency cost while choosing a specific stock. Secondly; the abuse of managerial appropriation is higher in state-held firms as compared to non-state firms. Policymakers can use these results to devise the investor protection rules so that managerial appropriation can be minimized.

This study examines the effect of independent directors on carbon information disclosure (CID) in China from 2011 to 2017. Additionally, this study investigates the effect of independent director’s attributes (gender, academic experience, and political connection) on the CID. To test our hypothesis, we collected data of 511 Chinese listed firms. The empirical results show that independent directors have a positive influence on the CID. Moreover, the independent female directors, independent academic directors and independent politically connected directors also enhances the CID. Our findings offer shareholders, regulators, and other stakeholders an integrating perspective on motivating firms to disclose high quality carbon information.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the value relevance of Research and development (R&D) and free cash flow (FCF) in an efficient investment setup. Most importantly, this paper examines whether the value relevance of R&D and FCF is associated with life cycle stages. Furthermore, this paper reports whether the market response to R&D and FCF is different in competitive market as compared to the concentrated market. Design/methodology/approach: The analysis is based on the Ohlson (1995) model for the determination of value relevance of earnings and book value. Capitalized R&D and FCF data comprising of the Chinese A-listed firms from the year 2008 to 2016 are selected for this study. Following Anthony and Ramesh (1992), the authors divided the firm life cycle into different stages. HHI index is used to measure the product market competition. Findings: The main result shows that R&D and FCF are value relevant in Chinese A-listed firms. The impact of R&D and FCF on the value relevance of earnings and book value is also positive and significant. The findings of the effect of R&D and FCF on the value relevance of accounting information signify that the information content (R²=0.46) of the mature stage is higher than that of the growth and stagnant stage. The explanatory power measured by R² value for competitive industries (0.47) is much higher than the concentrated industries (0.33). Research limitations/implications: Despite taking into account all the possible available variables, there are few limitations of the study. This study only studies the effect of EPS, BPS, R&D and FCF on the value relevance of accounting information. Other determinant such as size, growth, leverage and firm age is ignored. Since the R&D expenditure is discretionary, therefore the findings cannot be generalized to all the sectors. A sector wise comparative study can be done in future, to understand the differences in the information contents of R&D and FCF. Also, the tax effect of R&D is ignored in this study. For future call, the value relevance of tax effect on R&D can be explored. Practical implications: The investors can now determine the present value of all the future cash flows of investing activities. The results of the study are significant for the Chinese investors who should incorporate the R&D and FCF along with investment efficiency. The investors should keep in mind the life cycle stage while investing in a certain stock. The competitive markets have more information content than the concentrated markets. The corporate managers can benefit from this study while issuing new shares. The market responds positively to the stock having investment efficient R&D and FCF investment. For the policy implication perspective, the security market regulator should devise the effective pro-effective product market regulations. Originality/value: The contribution of this study is manifold. First, according to the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that incorporates investment efficiency with R&D and FCF and explores its effect on the value relevance of accounting information. Second, the impact of R&D on the value relevance is studied by numerous researchers (Lev and Sougiannis, 1996; Han and Manry, 2004). Similarly, FCF-agency cost effect has also been investigated by (Rahman and Mohd-Saleh, 2008; Chen et al., 2012) but the value relevance of R&D and FCF during different life cycle stages still needs to be answered. Finally, this study also tries to answers the question if the market response to R&D and FCF is different in a competitive market as compared to the concentrated market.