An Empirical Research on Corporate Governance and Information Disclosure Quality

Abstract

Corporate governance influences information disclosure quality of listed companies. This paper examines the relationship between information disclosure quality and corporate governance from share ownership structure, stuff composition, and duties performance. The empirical results based on 1758 data sample of Chinese-listed firms indicate that the quality of information disclosure is positively related to the proportion of the independent directors, and is negatively related to its square. By analysis the quadratic curve determined by independent directors, the optimal proportion is approximately 28%. The largest ownership, the change in share holding, and total remuneration are significantly positively related to disclosure quality. And the size of directors is significantly negatively related to disclosure quality. In addition, larger firms have more effective governance structure and may provide higher quality information report. Also there is significant difference of information quality among industries. Financial information quality is a part of information quality. The findings provide empirical evidence for corporate governance reform and benefit improvement of information disclosure quality.