We examine whether and how variations in the level of market development across regions in China affect controlling shareholders decisions to participate in Chinese public companies rights offerings. We find significant positive relations between measures of market development and controlling shareholders participation, as well as evidence that controlling shareholders participation benefits minority shareholders. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that better market development in an economy can provide de facto protection for minority shareholders by creat- ing implicit incentives for controlling shareholders to act in the interests of minority shareholders. Because our study holds constant minority shareholders de jure rights, these results suggest a reputation channel exists for macro-level institutions to affect firm-level governance that is distinct from the direct channel of explicitly granting de jure rights to minority shareholders.

We examine whether and how variations in the level of market development across regions in China affect controlling shareholders’ decisions to participate in Chinese public companies’ rights offerings. We find significant positive relations between measures of market development and controlling shareholders’ participation, as well as evidence that controlling shareholders’ participation benefits minority shareholders. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that better market development in an economy can provide de facto protection for minority shareholders by creating implicit incentives for controlling shareholders to act in the interests of minority shareholders. Because our study holds constant minority shareholders’ de jure rights, these results suggest a reputation channel exists for macro-level institutions to affect firm-level governance that is distinct from the direct channel of explicitly granting de jure rights to minority shareholders.

We examine the effects of government ownership on the change in valuation and the uses of proceeds of firms after they raise equity funds – the time when the agency problems of free cash flows are larger. We find that investors generally react more negatively to an equity offering decision by a company whose government ownership is higher. Firms generally increase cash dividend payments after offering equity, and firms with extremely high government ownership increase cash dividends more than other firms do. Further analysis shows that investors react more negatively to an offering decision if they expect the issuer to increase cash dividends post-offering. Our study suggests agency problems exist in equity offerings in China, and firms tunnel resources by offering shares to the public followed by an increase in cash dividends.

It is widely accepted that paying cash dividend might mitigate agency problem between majority shareholder and minority shareholders. Some common law countries use mandatory cash dividend policy to protect minority shareholders. We provide opposite evidence in this paper. First, we find that in China’s stock market, firms with intermediate or high shareholding concentration have higher incentive to pay cash dividend. As controlling shareholders in China hold non-negotiable shares, we argue that this phenomenon is associated with non-negotiable shareholders’ incentive to retrieve cash from the firm. Second, non-negotiable shareholders generally give up subscription right in rights offering. Furthermore, firms with intermediate or high shareholding concentration increase dividend payment soon after rights offering. Giving up subscription right and using receipts from rights offering to pay cash dividend together mean that non-negotiable shareholders in firms with intermediate or high shareholding concentration sell a proportion of the shares they hold to negotiable shareholders by paying cash dividend. The average selling price is about 3 times higher than that in private negotiation. Market reacts negatively to cash dividend announcement of firms with intermediate or high shareholding concentration. Our findings show that dividend might be used as a vehicle of tunneling.