The issues concerning the governance mechanism of board independence and its determinants remain controversial in the field of corporate finance. Particularly, the association between the properties of family power and board independence is yet comprehensively discussed and is crucial important for the financial market in Europe and Asia. We set out in our study to identify the determinants of board independence with the sample of listed firms in Taiwan from 2002 to 2006 based on the notions that independent boards play an important role to enhance corporate governance mechanism. The argument that the higher involvement of family power in the board room is harmful to the board independence is expected. The evidence shows that firms with larger size and greater opportunities of managers to consume private benefits tend to hire more independent directors. Besides, higher growth opportunities, as well as greater outsider influence provide the same positive effect on appointing independent directors. Regarding to the most important evidence, firms with greater proportion of family members on the directorship reduce the tendency to appoint more independent directors; moreover, the higher percentage of shares owned by family members provides the positive effect on board independence. However, firm age is found to have a contradictory effect to that reported in the prior studies and firms which are more seasoned do not necessarily tend to hire more independent directors. Furthermore, we also compare board structures across different firm sizes and find that board composition in small and large firms is extremely divergent. We tend to contribute to the literatures with the evidence that firms with greater influence of power of family directorship on the board meeting are burdened with severe problem of less independence of the board.

We seek to exam the government’s role on post-privatization performance in China. Using a sample of 514 firms privatized for the period from 1996 to 2002, we find evidence that the government’s role could be both positive and negative. On the one hand, firms with politically connected CEOs have significant higher return on sales (ROS) than firms with non-politically connected CEOs both before and after listing; and CEO’s political connection has a positive effect on firms with debt burden. Also there is a significantly positive relationship between the proportion of shares owned by Government Agencies and Tobin’s Q. On the other hand, firms with politically connected CEOs underperformance firms with non-politically connected CEOs in terms of ROS change after listing, and, a significantly negative relationship is found between the proportion of shares owned by Government Agencies and postprivatization ROS.

The B-share markets in China, originally for foreign investors only, were opened to local investors in 2001. This reform was expected to improve the information efficiency in B-share markets, since local investors were supposed to be better informed than foreign investors. Meanwhile, we find that, after opening to local investors, B-share price synchronicity increases, and firm-specific return variation (idiosyncratic risk) decreases. Opening B-share markets to local investors fails to improve or even deteriorates the information capitalization of B-share prices. The findings may help us understand Chinese government’s policy making. For instance, in August 2007, Chinese government announced that Chinese citizens would be allowed in public to buy and sell Hong Kong stocks through special accounts with domestic commercial banks. But after hearing opinions from different entities, Chinese government decides to infinitely postpone this policy.

In this paper, due to the important influence of corporate governance on corporate financial behaviors and from an angle of corporate governance, we develop six hypotheses based on overseas and home relevant researches and data of Chinese listed companies from 1999 to 2003, and then we do hypotheses testes with regression models to examine the impact of share percent of the top 5 shareholders and counterbalance mechanism among blockholders on cash dividend distribution of listed companies, and to explore influence and counterbalance mechanisms in tunneling of cash dividend which derived from the special phenomena of “same shares same rights but different price”. We find that share percent of top 5 shareholders, control ability (or combined control ability) and balance degree (or combined balance degree) of blockholders have important influence on tunneling of cash dividend distribution. Lastly, the paper proposes five suggestions to restrict controlling shareholders to enlist private interests from tunneling of cash dividend and to protect rights and interests of small and medium shareholders.

The paper, based on the samples of 2003, makes empirical analyses of China listed companies from the perspective of Chinese Corporate Governance Index ( ) and its six dimensions: the index of controlling shareholders’ behaviors, board governance index, top management governance index, information disclosure index, stakeholders’ governance index, supervisors committee governance index, and find that is positively associated with return on assets (ROA), net assets per share (NAPS), earnings per share (EPS), operating cash flow per share (OCFPS), total assets turnover (TAV), rate of total assets growth (ITA) and Z-score. These indicate that good corporate governance mechanisms improve profitability, stock expansion ability, operating efficiency, growth and development potential, as well as financial flexibility and safety of listed companies. Corporate governance mechanisms of controlling shareholders, board of directors, top management, information disclosure, stakeholders and supervisors committee are largely responsible for decision-making and decision-execution mechanisms, and furthermore, they have direct and profound effects on the performance and value of listed companies.

本文针对中国证券市场的现实特点，尤其是比较严格的卖空限制，将信息结构和看法差异两个摩擦因素作为市场价格变动的解释因素，试图探讨两者在价格形成中的作用，本模型是对Handa,Schwarta and Tiwari模型的改进，HST模型对信息的处理比较简单，只考虑了信息存在的情况，且信息只能持续一个时期，我们在此基础上，对其进行了扩展。不仅信息的存在与否进是不确定的，同时信息也能在多个时期存在，分析均衡买卖价差的性质和信息存在有关的因素之间的关系。

进入1990 年代以来，以短期利率为目标进行间接货币政策调控已经成为世 界各主要中央银行货币政策操作的普遍模式。本文首先以美国为例，说明公开市场操作与中 央银行利率操作的主要模式，并对我国十余年来，特别是2003 年以来，公开市场操作情况 进行概述，指出央票利率已初步具备了央行基准利率的特征。实证分析表明，央票利率与主 要货币市场利率具有长期协整关系，并且是货币市场利率的格兰杰原因，同时央票利率与产 出缺口和通胀缺口还具有显著的线性关系，说明我国可以通过引导利率进行间接货币政策调 控。最后，分析了我国当前公开市场操作和间接货币政策调控存在的问题，并提出了相应的 政策建议。

本文采用2006 年10 月以来的金融市场交易日数据，通过对Shibor 和同业 拆借利率、债券质押式回购利率的均值、方差均等性检验、VAR 模型及格兰杰因果检验、 脉冲响应函数和方差分解等实证分析表明，经过近三年的运行，Shibor 报价具有很高的真实 性、准确性和可靠性，在金融产品定价中的作用日益显著，其货币市场基准利率的作用已经 确立。目前，Shibor 的运行机制是良好的，对于实际运行中出现的各种问题，需要进一步加 强完善新股发行机制、健全Shibor 报价行激励约束机制等金融市场制度建设，将Shibor 培 育为一个成熟的货币市场基准利率体系和中国收益率曲线的短端基准。

In this paper, the relationship between firm performance’s combinations and differences as well as the timeliness of actual and scheduled third-quarter report disclosures is examined by regressing on data extracted from the semi-annual and the third-quarter reports of Chinese listed companies between 2003 and 2004. After controlling for the possible impact of semi-annual report disclosures, stock exchanges, firm size, ratios of tradable A-shares and B-shares, and so on, the results indicate that managers of listed companies may have the incentive to manipulate information in the actual and scheduled third-quarter report disclosures; the rule of “releasing good news earlier than bad news” is thus not strictly complied with. This paper further indicates that a firm’s performance, its combinations and differences, have a significant impact on the timeliness of disclosures of these two reports. I therefore suggest minimising the probability of information manipulation of listed companies, boosting investor relation management to safeguard the rights of small and medium shareholders, and enhancing the timeliness of information disclosures of Chinese listed companies.

本文主要考察公司业绩组合、公司业绩差异与季报披露的时间选择之间的关系以及季报披露时间的信息内涵。实证研究显示，上年年报和一季度季报均为“好消息”，一季度每股收益、净资产收益率和主营业务利润率高的上市公司季报披露时间间隔大；上年年报为“好消息”而一季度季报为“坏消息”，上年年报为“坏消息”而一季度季报为“好消息”，上年年报和一季度季报均为“坏消息”，一季度每股收益比上年度高的上市公司季报披露时间间隔小。这可能是由于一季度季报和上年年报均要求在4月30日之前披露的特殊性，上市公司管理层在信息披露的过程中可能存在组合动机与信息操作行为，一季度季报披露的时间选择可能关键取决于上年年报和一季度季报披露的“好消息”或“坏消息”带来的积极影响或消极影响的组合与权衡。