Does Asia Really Have Poorer Corporate Governance? : Evidence from International Variations in Transparency

Prior literature contending that corporate governance in Asia is poor ignores disclosure of self-dealing. This paper overcomes this deficiency as it examines the determinants of measures against self-dealing in business transactions in sixty countries, focusing especially on Asian countries controlling for national culture and relevant economic variables. We document that higher self-dealing transparency is positively associated with the Asian region. We also find that governance disclosure is negatively associated with uncertainty avoidance and positively associated with an English legal origin and greater economic inequality. Given that the Asian region has often been regarded as having poorer governance, our study will be of considerable interest to investors, managers, and policy makers