Ownership Characteristics and Financial Performance: Evidence from Chinese Split-Share Structure Reform
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Overall, the introduction section is ok. The document makes clear description of the main reasons to conduct the study.
Section 2, Background is ok!
Section 3. there are 2 sections 3
“3. Literature review and hypothesis development”
…
“3. Literature review and hypothesis development”
you must correct it
Regarding to section 4. Study Design, the main issue is related with the data that are outdated. You should use more recent data.
Moreover, you did not mention when did you retrieved the data and what kind of software was used to compute data.
Concerning section5 and 6, overall, section 6 conclusion is ok. However, I believe that the main consequences of the study results should be better explored. You cand do it either, in the subsection 5.2. or in section 6. Nevertheless, the theoretical implications are absent, and the practical are a bit weak. I suggest you improve the these aspects.
I believe that your paper is very interesting nevertheless, I found it very descriptive and you should improve the quality of the conclusions.
Furthermore, I found that se focus on the context (China) limits the generalization of the results. Instead, I recommend that you focus, your effort in the strength of the conclusions and its effects in developing markets instead of the China context.
You can only generalize the results to similar contexts, and this hasn’t been done in the paper.
finally, I recommend you write a few lines mentioning the main weaknesses (if they exist) and the main implications for future research.
There are a few spelling errors that must be solved (e.g. line 561 "governacne ") and the section numbers, departing from section 3 must be corrected.
Furthermore, you could use more recent refences. Overall, they are somewhat outdated.
Good luck with your work.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper analyses the effects of ownership concentration and state ownership on the market value of firms, with the assessment of such effects done in the context of the stock split reform in China. The motivation of the paper, its contribution and relation with previous literature are discussed, and the methodology is acceptable in general.
Although the ideas are generally clear, I have concerns on the following issues:
11. Hypothesis definition.
a. The definition of hypotheses 1 and 2 seems to add little value to the literature, given that (as the authors themselves show) the intuition in those hypotheses appears to have been already confirmed by several previous studies. The confirmation of what many other studies found just by using a more recent dataset has little scientific merit on its own.
b. All hypotheses mention the effects of governance issues on firm performance. However, from what the authors apply in the methodology (and in line with the document title) the aim is to test the effects on the firm market value, which may not be necessarily the same as performance (the latter with a broader meaning).
My recommendation is that a redefinition of hypotheses is done (in particular, H1 and H2), centring on and emphasizing the unique contribution of the paper.
22. Methodology and data.
a. The data on listed firms ranges from 2004 to 2013. Given that the stock split reform occurred in 2005, this dataset contains much less observations prior to the reform than what is considered after the reform. A discussion of this issue needs to be introduced to inform the reader of the respective potential consequences.
b. The equations need to be numbered. Also, the two equations shown are equal and contain inaccuracies (repeated sum prior to beta 6). In addition, there is a lack of information about some variables (how is the “board of supervisors' scale” measured?), and the correspondence between variables notation and their meaning is missing.
c. The authors show in table 5 the results from different regressions, but do not explain properly their differences and why they use them. The same applies to the results of these regressions, that require a minimum comparison.
Given the above considerations, an overall revision is required to section 4 (Study Design).
33. Text adjustments and proofread.
a. A general revision of the text is highly recommended, as many typos remained in the document, with several words incorrectly written (e.g., split, Chinese, contexts, hypothesis, ratio, this).
b. Line 25: replace “We suggest that …” by “The results suggest that …”.
c. Line 60: replace “…performance is related …” by “…performance is more related …”.
d. The definition of the acronym SO, used several times in the text, is missing.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Authors,
In the title, abstract, introduction and conclusion you refer to CG, but in the article you refer to ownership structures. This is clearly incorrect so you must explain the shift from CG to ownership structure or substitute the references to CG with ownership structure. Please refer on the fluent literature on CG for any clarifications.
In sample size you don't explain data source, please provide it.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Dear authors,
You have a good paper. The literature review covers almost all relevant researchrs, the hypothesis are well chosen and the methods adequate.
Good luck
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
One typo remained in the document. On page 21 of the revised pdf file, the sentence starting as "Further, his finding supports interpreting the association..." should be written "Further, this finding supports interpreting the association..."
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Authors,
now your paper could be publish in present form.
