Annual reports are the main sources of information for outside investors' investment decisions and enable shareholders to supervise the management. Difficulties with the readability of these reports may therefore have serious consequences. Using 19,221 firm-year observations of Chinese A-share...

We examine whether reputable independent directors improve firm performance and governance quality in emerging markets, using data from China. Firms with such directors, measured as the number of directorships in other listed firms, have higher profitability, operating efficiency and...