Beyond the Balance Sheet: Analyzing the Relationship between Corporate Governance, Financial Performance, and Stock Prices in Pakistan's Non-Bank Financial Industry

Abstract

This study explores the complex relationship among corporate governance, financial performance, and stock prices in Pakistan's non-bank financial industry from 2017 to 2021. Employing panel least squares and generalized method of moments for empirical analysis, our research highlights the substantial and positive correlation between stock prices and earnings per share, emphasizing the significance of profits per share. Corporate governance factors, such as board meetings, board size, and board independence, exhibit shaded impacts on stock prices. Board meetings transition from insignificance in static analysis to a negative, substantial association in dynamic analysis. Conversely, board size and board independence remain insignificant, suggesting a limited influence on stock price fluctuations. Institutional ownership emerges as a robust driver, displaying a positive impact in both static and dynamic analyses. In contrast, managerial ownership yields mixed impacts, with static analysis revealing a nonsignificant negative relationship and dynamic analysis unveiling a significant negative association. The study underlines the need to consider both static and dynamic perspectives when evaluating these relationships, highlighting the temporal dynamics and lagged effects in assessing the influence of managerial ownership on stock prices. Additionally, return on assets demonstrates an insignificant impact on stock prices in Pakistan's non-bank financial industry, consistent across both static and dynamic analyses.