1.Introd 1.1 Motivations for th 1.1.1 Agency conflicts in corporations 1.1.2 Corporate governance devices 1.1.3 Agency conflicts and corporate governance structures in China 1.2 Objectives of the study 1.3 Methodology 1.4 Organization of the book 2.Literature review of corporate governance in 2.1 Ownership structure 2.2 Board of directors 2.3 CEO duality, CEO compensation, and CEO turnover 2.4 External governance mechanisms 2.4.1 Takeover market 2.4.2 Product market competition 2.4.3 Legal infrastructure 2.4.4 Bank monitoring 2.5 Summary of the literature review and questions 3.Corporate governance and firm value during the global financial crisis.Evidence from 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Hypotheses 3.3 Sample selection and data 3.4 Empirical analyses 3.4.1 Univariate analyses 3.4.2 Regression results 3.5 Additional tests 3.5.1 Differing definitions of financial crisis periods 3.5.2 Deletion of outliers 3.5.3 Pre-erisis period results 3.6 Conclusions 4.Long-term stock performance following top turnover: Evidence from China 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Hypotheses 4.3 Sample selection and data 4.3.1 Sample selection 4.3.2 Measure of turnover-related stock performance ch 4.4 Empirical results 4.4.1 Stock performance following CEO turnover 4.4.2 Cross-sectional determinants of turnover-related change in stock performance 4.5 Conclusions 5.Controlling shareholder, split-share structure reform and cash dividend payments in 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Hypotheses 5.3 Sample selection and data 5.3.1 Sample selection 5.3.2 Variables 5.3.3 Data description 5.4 Empirical results 5.5 Absolute levels of cash dividends, NPTS, and ownership concentration 5.6 Conclusion 6.Conclusion and implicat References Appendix 致谢