محمدحسین عبدالرحیمیان

Financing decisions such as capital structure have gained much attention in literature of financial development over the last decade. Capital structure deviations from its optimal level can occur for various reasons. According to the dynamic trade-off theory, continuous adjustment of capital structure to maximize company value is essential. If companies adjust their capital structure quickly towards the target leverage, past financing activities and historical market conditions will only have short-term effects on the current capital structure. Conversely, if companies adjust their capital structure slowly, the opposite is true. We examine the relationship between organizational and performance characteristics and capital structure, as well as the speed of adjustment, in financial and non-financial firms listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange and compare these effects between the two categories of companies. The statistical population consists of companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange from 2017 to 2022. The results show that the speed of capital structure adjustment is lower in the financial sector compared to the non-financial sector. Additionally, three performance variables—profitability, growth opportunities, and liquidity—are statistically significant and impact capital structure and its adjustment speed in both financial and non-financial sectors. However, the growth opportunities variable has a different effect direction in the financial sector compared to the non-financial sector, while the age variable does not have a significant effect. Regarding organizational characteristics—complexity, institutional ownership, and size—only organizational complexity in the financial sector is significant at a 95% confidence level, while all organizational characteristics are significant in the non-financial sector

Providing financial services for social projects represents corporate social responsibility (CSR), because it indicates ethical commitment for creating better social environment. It improves public image and loyalty of customers, increases the commercial value of the trademark, promote public trust, create confidence of the beneficiaries, and attract valuable resources by the corporate. Corporates have realized that they are responsible for the society in which they operate. We examined the impact of CSR on the efficiency and profitability of banks. The statistical population of the research is 16 banks listed in Tehran Stock Exchange during the period 2014-2018. Four variables represent efficiency and profitability. Also, six variables included in the model as control variables. The results indicated a positive and significant effect of social responsibility on the efficiency and profitability of the banks, so that the CSR has most effect on the return on assets, net profit margin and return on equity respectively.

The ultimate goal of investments in stock markets is to earn a satisfactory return on investment, but this is difficult to achieve without enough information to predict stock returns. Information asymmetry refers to a situation where some investors have access to private information that is not reflected in the prices and is yet to be revealed to others. Information asymmetry as a market failure can lead to adverse effects such as poor investor decisions, increased corporate investment risk, and finally reduced stock returns. The issue is important in capital market of developing countries particularly due to the incomplete voluntary disclosure of information as well as its low quality and defective regulatory system. Therefore, in this study, effect of information asymmetry on stock returns has been investigated in a select group of companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange. The analysis of this relationship was conducted dynamically for the short-term and long-term using Westerlund and Dumitrescu-Hurlin tests and Generalized Method of Moments to achieve articulated results. Using the tests is suitable with cross-sectional dependence of variables and error terms. Also, using the method is appropriate for measuring lagged effect of dependent variable and removing the bias caused by the endogeneity of explanatory variables. The Results demonstrate a significant relationship between information asymmetry and stock return dynamically in short- and long-run. The results show that there is a negative systemic effect of information asymmetry on stock return. Also, debt to asset, profit to sales, firm size and lagged stock return effects are significant.