04637nas|a2200265 a 450000500170000000800410001703500150005810000190007324501440009226000670023630000220030349000330032550001600035850200570051852033160057565000350389170000410392670000420396770000500400970000480405971000690410771000650417681000650424185600650430620260818090403.0161112s2013    th uu|m rtm   0|  a1eng d  a.b121741051 aNosheen, Safia10aDeterminants of disclosure quality and impact of corporate governance characteristics on cost of equity financing :bevidence from Pakistan  aPathum Thani, Thailand :bAsian Institute of Technology,c2013  a80 leaves :bill.1 aDissertation ;vno. SM-13-08  aA dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy  in Business Administration, School of Management  aThesis (Ph.D.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2013  aThe focus of this study is to investigate the  role of  disclosure quality practices as adopted by the  listed companies to  reduce  the  cost  of  equity.  Besides this,  the research  study  also  examines  governance  factors  that  help  firm s for  adopting  quality  disclosure  policies. In  order  to test the  hypothesis  that I  develop in this study I use  companies listed on  the  Karachi  Stock  Exchange  for  year 2009 and 2010.  Currently, 651 companies are  listed on the  Karachi Stock Exchange. I use  board  independence,  audit  committee  independence,  ownership  concentration, CEO  duality,  audit quality as governance attributes, and firm level attributes that  I take  are firm size,  leverage,  and  M/B  ratio.  Besides  these  firm  and  governance  related  attributes  I  also  use  the  interaction  term  between  CEO  duality  and  ownership  concentration  to  see  the  combined  impact  of  concentrated power on disclosure quality.  In  order  to test the  hypothesis  devel op  in  this  study  I  use  the  regression  analysis. To study  the  impact  of  disclosure  quality  on  cost  of  equity  financing  for  listed  firms  I  use  2SLS  regression  analysis. The regression results of the OLS show that disclosure quality negatively influences the  required returns and when the disclosure quality is first explained by using instrumental variables  of CEO duality and ownership concentration disclosure quality appears as significantly reducing  the required return.   Findings of this study  reveal the fact that  corporate governance practice as adopted by companies  influence  their  disclosure  quality. The  most  important  governance  factors  that  affect  disclosure  quality  include  audit  quality,  CEO  duality,  audit  committee  independence  and  ownership  concentrati on. The combined impact of  CEO  duality and ownership concentration on disclosure  quality  also proves as  a significant influencing factor. Audit committee independence positively  influenc es  the  disclosure  quality  but  with  inclusion  of  board  independence,  it remains  no more  significant. Board independence does  not influence  disclosure quality. Results  of  this  study  depict  CEO  duality as  an  influential  factor  that  influences the  required  returns.  Audit committee  independence  is  also  not help ing the  firms  in reducing cost of  equity,   investors  are  not  seemed  satisfied  with  the  so - called  independence  of  the  audit  committee  or  firms  are  not fully applying the concept of non - executive directors.  Firms having more leverage  are  suffering  from  higher  cost of  equity.  Firm{u201F}s size is also related positively with the required  return that means that big  firms are  subject to greater cost of  financing. Higher Market to book  value ratio is associated with higher cost of financing.  Outcomes  of this research study are beneficial for  investors, top management and policy makers.  These  findings  can  help  the  investors  making  the  investment  decisions.  Top  management  can find these  findings to overcome the weaknesses of the existing system.  Policy  makers  based on these  findings  can  adopt  better  policies  for  making  system  more  transparent  and  investor  friendly. 0aCorporate governancezPakistan0 aSupasith Chonglerttham,eChairperson1 aBadir, Yuosre,eExamination Committee1 aTripathi, Nitin Kumar,eExamination Committee1 aSaleh, Zakiah Binti,eExamination Committee2 aHigher Education Commission  (HEC), Pakistan,eScholarship Donor2 aAsian Institute of Technology Fellowship,eScholarship Donor2 aAsian Institute of Technology.tDissertation ;vno. SM-13-08  3Full-Textuhttp://203.159.5.9/ait-thesis/detail.php?q=B00822