 Ownership concentration and financial policy of China's listed firmsHeejung Choi, Ju Hyun Kim, Jungwon Suh and Shuilian Yu China Economic Review, 2023, vol. 79, issue C Abstract: This study examines the role of ownership concentration, measured by the top-five shareholders' equity ownership, in shaping corporate finance policies in China. Among privately-owned enterprises (POEs), ownership concentration has negative and positive effects on their debt and cash reserves, respectively, consistent with controlling shareholders' incentives to stave off business failures and ride out adverse future circumstances. These effects are more pronounced if POEs have high market-to-book, suggesting that growth opportunities heighten their controlling shareholders' desire to avoid debt and hoard cash. Although ownership concentration has similar effects on debt and cash in state-owned enterprises (SOEs), these effects in SOEs appear to reflect management discretion or conservatism. Our evidence suggests that ownership concentration is a key driver of corporate finance in an emerging market, but private and state ownership concentrations have seemingly similar but qualitatively different consequences. Keywords: Ownership concentration; Capital structure; Cash reserves; POEs; SOEs; China; Management discretion (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:chieco:v:79:y:2023:i:c:s1043951x23000585 DOI: 10.1016/j.chieco.2023.101973 Access Statistics for this article China Economic Review is currently edited by B.M. Fleisher, K. X. D. Huang, M.E. Lovely, Y. Wen, X. Zhang and X. Zhu More articles in China Economic Review from Elsevier |
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