Market Stock Liquidity and Corporate Governance

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the empirical relation between corporate governance and stock market liquidity of the French firms. Based on a cross-sectional analysis, our study of the empirical relation between the corporate governance and the stock liquidity was realized on 155 French companies during 2008 and 2009. The handled mechanisms include the characteristics of the board of directors and the audit committee.

Our results seem to indicate a significant effect of certain mechanisms of corporate governance on the liquidity of the French market. These mechanisms can reduce the asymmetry of information between the investors, make the exchanges more transparent and provoke an improvement of the liquidity on the market. These results suggest that firms with better corporate governance may reduce the informative asymmetry and improve the liquidity of its stocks.

Keywords: French stock market, corporate governance, market liquidity