Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of the mandatory adoption of corporate governance mechanisms on serious firm issues (earnings manipulation, management effectiveness and firm's financing). Design/methodology/approach – Cross-sectional analysis is employed to...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to test two agency-based hypotheses regarding the effect of ownership concentration on dividend policy using a large sample of Japanese firms. Design/methodology/approach – Level regressions associating payout rates to ownership concentration are run....