Modern investment theory has empirically proved that stock returns can be explained by several factors such as market risk, firm size, and book-to-market ratio. Other unknown factors affecting stock returns are also believed to still exist yet to be found. We believe that one of such factors is the operational efficiency of firms in transforming inputs to outputs, considering the fact that operations is a fundamental and primary function of any type of businesses. To support this belief, this study intends to empirically study the relationship between firm efficiency and stock price performance. Firm efficiency is measured using data envelopment analysis (DEA) with inputs and outputs obtained from financial statements. We employ cross-efficiency evaluation to enhance the discrimination power of DEA with a secondary objective function of aggressive formulation. Using the CAPM-based performance regression model, we test the performance of equally weighted portfolios of different sizes selected based upon DEA cross-efficiency scores along with a buy & hold trading strategy. For the empirical test, we collect financial data of domestic firms listed in KOSPI over the period of 2000~2016 from well-known financial databases. As a result, we find that the porfolios with highly efficient firms included outperform the benchmark market portfolio after controlling for the market risk, which indicates that firm efficiency plays a important role in explaining stock returns.

This paper examines empirically the net impact of residual state ownership on privatized firm efficiency in the transitional context of Vietnam. Vietnamese privatization has its own characteristics. Instead of mass and full privatization, Vietnam has chosen a partial and gradual path. Thus, it is important to assess the net impact of residual state ownership on privatized firms during the post-privatization period. This study employs stochastic frontier analysis to investigate the association between residual state ownership and the efficiency of privatized firms, using a sample of all privatized firms that are listed on the Vietnamese stock exchanges over the period from 2007 to 2017. Also, two-stage least squares regression is incorporated into the model to deal with potential endogeneity issues. Our study provides evidence that state ownership should not be considered as a pure source of agency problems. Indeed, the net impact of residual state ownership on privatized firm efficiency is non-monotonic, and the relationship between residual state ownership and privatized firm efficiency is under an inverted U-shape. A moderate level (less than 50%) of residual state ownership might be beneficial to privatized firm efficiency whereas too much state ownership is detrimental to the efficiency of privatized firms.

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.

Corporate governance has received massive attention in academic research nowadays due to several recent corporate failures. Inefficiency of corporate governance mechanisms have driven the minds of the researchers and the policy makers to look with more insights into this area. Board composition, as part of corporate governance mechanism, plays a significant role to achieve company’s goals or objectives and ensure transparency and accountability. The objective of this study is to find out the efficiency of board composition through board size, independent directors and female directors on firm performance in the listed manufacturing firms of Bangladesh. In this study, a sample of 162 firm years are considered as the sample during the period of 2011 to 2016. This study finds that large board is the significant explanatory variable in improving firm performance. This study also shows that board independence and female directors have no significant association with firm performance which implies that instrument of corporate governance mechanism particularly board composition is very weak. This study recommends that code of corporate governance, specially the role of independent directors and female directors, should be reformed in the light of cultural and institutional context along with the effective enforcement.

Nowadays meteorological information is systemized as a useful knowledge which has a significant effect on the overall industrial domains over the simple data. The distribution industry, which has the short life cycle, depends on the meteorological information at the strategic level. However, it is necessary to pay attention to the continuous investment in meteorological information because there is a hostility to paying for a service, particularly it does not provide accurate and reliable information. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to increase the usefulness of meteorological information in the distribution industry for its economic effectiveness from the core meteorological factors. We found significant meteorological factors (temperature, precipitation, disaster) that have a critical influence on the distribution industry through the hierarchical analysis process, and their importance according to the type of distribution channels, such as department store, large-scale discount store, convenience store, and home shopping. We performed the AHP analysis with 103 survey samples by middle managers from the various distribution channels. We found that precipitation is the critical meteorological factor across the distribution industry. Based on this result, we stress the difference in the level of the meteorological information in order for the effectiveness of each type of distribution channels.