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As an important provision in a company's charter, the requirement of staggered board elections can help management protect themselves or protect the interests of investors. We examined a unique dataset of Chinese listed firms from the period of 2004–2014, and our findings are twofold. First, we find that the establishment of a staggered board in a company's article of association increases the equity financing costs as well as the debt financing costs. This result is in line with management defense hypothesis that staggered boards are an overprotection for the management. Second, our results show that a cumulative voting system plays an effective role in reducing the impact of a staggered board on a firm's financing costs. This moderating impact is higher for the debt financing costs and lower for the equity financing costs. The result shows that "debt investors" value a cumulative voting system because of its control of the corporate operations and board activities, while "equity investors" believe staggered board elections have a larger influence on the corporate governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2010, the Chinese Government issued a policy to require enterprises to disclose environmental information. Using the environmental disclosure information of 204 Chinese listed companies in 20 polluting sectors over the period of 2011–2015, we find that managers tend to withhold environmental information and selectively disguise sensitive environmental information in the face of financial pressure, and where the disclosure of sensitive environmental information would significantly increase the cost of debt financing. Furthermore, agency conflicts and information asymmetry between managers and outside investors promote the managers' tendencies to withhold environmental information when facing financial pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]