We examine the determinants of Japanese foreign direct investment (FDI) focusing on institutional and social factors. Using panel data on 59 countries from 1995 to 2008, we find that host countries with free and open markets and greater cultural distance from Japan attract Japanese FDI. Good...

Ethical issues have received growing attention recently, after corporate scandals and during the current economic crisis. Several initiatives have been adopted to restore confidence and trust in businesses, such as ethics codes. In addition, as a result of those scandals and financial frauds,...

We use extensive hand collected surveys reporting governance practices of Brazilian firms in 2004, 2006, and 2009 to build a broad corporate governance index and analyze the evolution of corporate governance in Brazil and the association between governance and firm value. We find that corporate...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the views of directors of public-listed Australian companies regarding the role of the independent director and the significance of that role in relationship to the composition of the board of company directors. Design/methodology/approach –...

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....

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of audit committee meeting frequency in Chinese listed companies. Design/methodology/approach – A multiple linear regression model, derived from the logarithmic model proposed by Raghunandan and Rama, is used to examine...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between corporate governance practices or mechanisms and firm value, as measured by accounting and market data. Design/methodology/approach – Partial least square analyses were performed on a sample of 355 observations...

This paper assesses conflicts of interest between banks and their client firms via the merger transaction by examining the wealth gain of merger acquirers who were listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 1990–2004. The paper reports two main findings. First, acquiring firms did not gain from...

The Japanese system of corporate governance andin particular the role played by banks andother financial institutions have been thesubject of considerable research andcontroversy in recent years. We estimate theimpact of equity ownership by financialinstitutions on firm performance in Japan...

This paper investigates how the consolidation process has affected the market structure and the degree of competition within Credit Associations (CA) and Credit Cooperatives (CC) in Japan. From the estimated results, I tentatively find they operate in an environment without collusive behaviour....