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As the pivotal figure of information transmission in the capital market, the mainstream financial press has a significant impact on the operation of the stock market. Based on the mainstream financial press, this study obtains the news reports of 945 China A‐share listed companies in 2010–2019 and analyzes the relationship between the attention of the mainstream financial press and the efficiency of stock pricing. Further, we explore the mediating effect of corporate governance in this correlation. The empirical results show that the more reports on listed companies from the mainstream financial press the lower the delay level of the stock price of listed companies. At the same time, the characteristics information of the stock price increases, the higher the stock pricing efficiency. The attitude of press reports of listed companies also has an impact on the efficiency of stock pricing. The improvement of pricing efficiency will be achieved through neutral reporting. Mainstream financial press reports indirectly improve the efficiency of stock pricing by reducing the agency costs of the two types, and corporate governance plays a significant intermediary role in it. Finally, compared with market‐oriented media, the effect of policy‐oriented mainstream financial press on pricing efficiency is more significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research is not conclusive whether information asymmetries or managerial discretion are the cause of observed investment-cash flow sensitivity. This paper examines the effect of family firms' governance heterogeneity on firm's investment-cash flow sensitivity in Brazil. The Brazilian economic and corporate governance context present several idiosyncratic features, including weak minority shareholder protection, an underdeveloped capital market, macro-economic uncertainties, the presence of controlling shareholders (especially families), and the excessive use of control-enhancing mechanisms, allowing us to explore in greater detail the drivers of investment-cash flow sensitivity. We find that investment is more sensitive to cash flow for firms with a highly entrenched family presence (divergence between corporate control and voting rights coupled with family management) than in less entrenched family firms. This result emerges primarily due to financial constraints from asymmetric information, rather than agency problems of free cash flow from abuse of managerial discretion. Our findings shed new light on the role of excessive control rights in investment decisions, allowing family managers to reallocate capital to cope with financial constraints in times of economic uncertainties. • Family entrenched firms reduce the investment-cash flow sensitivity. • Entrenched owners are stewards in times of economic uncertainty. • Underinvestment due to information asymmetries seems to prevail. • There is no evidence of private benefits of control in family entrenched firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, I examine the association between the credibility of the financial reporting system and the quality of governance mechanisms. I use a sample of 87 firms identified by the SEC as fraudulently manipulating their financial statements. Consistent with prior research, results indicate that fraud firms have poor governance relative to a control sample in the year prior to fraud detection. Specifically, fraud firms have fewer numbers and percentages of outside board members, fewer audit committee meetings, fewer financial experts on the audit committee, a smaller percentage of Big 4 auditing firms, and a higher percentage of CEOs who are also chairmen of the board of directors. However, the results indicate that fraud firms take actions to improve their governance, and three years after fraud detection these firms have governance characteristics similar to the control firms in terms of the numbers and percentages of outside members on the board, but exceed the control firms in the number of audit committee meetings. I also investigate whether the improved governance influences informed capital market participants. The results indicate that analyst following and institutional holdings do not increase in fraud firms, suggesting that credibility was still a problem for these firms. However, the results also indicate that firms that take actions to improve governance have superior stock price performance, even after controlling for earnings performance. This suggests that investors appear to value governance improvements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]