Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of corporate anti-corruption practice disclosure (ACPD) from the perspective of rent-seeking theory. Research design, data, and methodology - Data are hand-collected from corporate social responsibility reports (CSRR) issued by 724 A-share listed firms in China. This paper provides an empirical analysis of the relationship between ownership structure and corporate ACPD as well as its moderating role in the institutional environment. Results - Our findings indicate that rent-seeking is a key factor in influencing corporate ACPD. State-owned enterprises disclose significantly more anti-corruption information than private ones in order to achieve personal promotion of top executives. Monopoly enterprises reported significantly less anti-corruption information than enterprises in competitive industries due to their rent-seeking behavior. The reduction of government intervention and improvement of legal environment are helpful to curb corporate rent-seeking activities and enhance the level of corporate ACPD. Conclusions - Rent-seeking is an important factor in explaining corporate voluntary disclosure in emerging countries. Institutional environment also plays a moderating role in the relationship between ownership structure and corporate voluntary disclosure. Our results are of interest to policy makers, regulators and market participants that are interested in corporate voluntary disclosure and corruption prevention.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between the nature of controlling shareholders and corporate anti-corruption practice disclosure (ACPD) as well as the mediating role of political background of the chairman or CEO of the firm on the relationship between the two. The content analysis was conducted to extract ACPD from standalone corporate social responsibility reports (CSRR) of 703 China’s A-share listed companies. A dummy variable was constructed according to whether a firm disclosed ACPD or not. Logistic regression analysis was used then. Results show that the nature of controlling shareholders has a significant impact on corporate ACPD, with central enterprises disclosing the most frequently, local state-owned enterprises the second and private enterprises the least. Political background of the chairman or CEO has a negative impact on corporate ACPD of state-owned enterprises. These findings have some useful insights in understanding the rent-seeking behavior and information disclosure behavior of corporates in emerging markets. In order to curb the serious corruption problem which is commonplace in developing countries like China, the government should exert certain pressure to strengthen the supervision of information disclosure of listed firms and improve information transparency.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between regional financial development and corporate investment efficiency as well as the relationship between firm-level characteristics and corporate investment efficiency. Using a large sample of A-listed companies in China from CSMAR database between 2003 and 2016, this paper explores corporate investment efficiency and its influencing factors in emerging market on the basis of heterogeneous stochastic frontier model. The results show that: (1) the average investment efficiency of Chinese listed companies is 74.5%, and the investment efficiency of large enterprises, state-owned enterprises and enterprises with relatively high financial development level is significantly higher; (2) compared with average corporate investment efficiency in the year 2003, the investment efficiency of different types of enterprises in 2016 is significantly higher, and the gap is gradually widening; (3) enterprise heterogeneity namely firm size, nature of property right, and institutional environment reflected by the level of regional financial development indirectly affects corporate investment efficiency by influencing the financing constraints and uncertainty. The findings suggest that to improve corporate investment efficiency in emerging market, financial market should be accelerated, regional balance should be restored and the differences among regions, industries and differences between public and private sectors should be eliminated.