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Abstract We test whether the channel by which the government plays the role of political patron to selected firms influences analysts' forecast precision in Malaysia. Correcting for analysts' self-selection bias, we find a negative relation between analysts' forecast errors and the social dimension of political patronage, as proxied by government-controlled institutional ownership. The reverse is found for the economic dimension of political patronage, as proxied by the percentage shareholding of government-linked corporations. We find no evidence that the personal dimension of political patronage influences analysts' forecast precision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We analyse the impact of gender on firm financing during the COVID–19 pandemic. • We find evidence of female favouritism in the formal debt market during the pandemic • Prototypical forms of femininity become advantageous during the pandemic. Using gender as a theoretical framework, we analyse the dynamics of debt and equity financing during the COVID-19 pandemic for a cross-country sample of 8,921 private firms. We provide evidence of a slight gender bias in debt financing, with creditors favouring female entrepreneurs when dealing with cash flow problems during the COVID-19 pandemic. We find no evidence of gender bias in equity financing. The results are robust after controlling for a larger number of firm-specific characteristics and selection bias. We challenge the assumption of "gender-based discrimination" in the debt market, speculating that in the context of high uncertainty, prototypical forms of femininity may be advantageous as financial institutions seek to hedge their risk by favouring more conservative borrowers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper provides the first evidence showing that ownership concentration and the identity of the largest shareholder matter to the timeliness of corporate earnings, measured by a stock price-based timeliness metric and the reporting lag. Using panel data of 1276 Malaysian firms from 1996 to 2009, we find a non-linear relationship between concentrated ownership, measured by the largest shareholding in a firm, and the reporting lag but not the timeliness of price discovery. Although firms with government as the largest shareholder and political connections have a significantly shorter reporting lag, only the former are timelier in price discovery. Firms with family and foreigners as the largest shareholder however are less timely in price discovery. While the reporting lag is shorter in the period after the integration of the Malaysian Code of Corporate Governance (MCCG) into Bursa listing rules, its impact on the timeliness of price discovery is mostly immaterial. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]