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This study examines the impact of corporate governance, reflecting a wide spectrum of board characteristics and ownership structure on agency costs in 281 listed companies on Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HOSE) in Vietnam in the period 2013--2018. For this purpose, three board characteristics were chosen: (1) the size of board of directors, (2) equilibrium between non-executive and executive members of the board of directors, (3) theCEOchair duality and three types of ownership structures were chosen: (1) management ownership, (2) government ownership, (3) foreign ownership. An inverse proxy of agency costs is used: asset utilization ratio (asset turnover), which reflects the managerial efficiency. The research methodology includes three statistical approaches: Ordinary least squares (OLS), fixed effects model (FEM) and random effects model (REM) are considered to employ to address econometric issues and to improve the accuracy of the regression coefficients. The results can create effective corporate governance mechanisms in controlling the managerial opportunistic behavior to lower agency conflicts, and hence lower agency costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An assumption in agency costs theory is that agency costs can exert a negative impact on firm performance. In this study, we examine the impact of agency costs on firm performance of Vietnamese listed companies. Our sample includes 736 companies in Vietnam during the period from 2010 to 2015. We find that agency costs exert a negative impact on firm performance. Our results are robust to alternative econometric models, including an instrumental variables technique and a system generalized method of moment model. In addition, we show that a debt instrument can be a useful tool to reduce the negative impact of agency costs on firm performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The management of cash requires careful considerations to allow firms to benefit from proper resource allocations while mitigating agency issues. Accounting comparability can play an important role in tackling information asymmetry and agency cost, thus enabling managers to hoard more cash. This research aims to investigate the link between accounting comparability and cash holdings in an emerging market. Using a sample of listed firms in Vietnam from 2010 to 2019 and System Generalized Method of Moments, the study finds that comparability is positively associated with corporate cash holdings, confirming the value of the former as an effective governance mechanism. Additionally, we find a non-linear impact of comparability on cash holdings; in other words, comparability specifically enhances cash holdings for firms with high levels of comparability. We further document that cash holdings improve firm performance only for firms with high levels of comparability. Such evidence implies that only firms with high levels of financial statement comparability show commitment to tackle agency cost and information asymmetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]