Who Captures the Power of the Pen?

You, Jiaxing; Zhang, Bohui; Zhang, Le

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2403608

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Who Captures the Power of the Pen?

Review of Financial Studies, 2018,43–96

122 Pages Posted: 6 Mar 2014 Last revised: 29 Nov 2018

See all articles by Jiaxing You

Bohui Zhang

The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen

Le Zhang

Australian National University (ANU) - College of Business and Economics

Date Written: January 16, 2017

Abstract

We study how government control affects the roles of the media as an information intermediary and a corporate monitor. Comparing a large sample of news articles written by state-controlled and market-oriented Chinese media, we find that articles by the market-oriented media are more critical, more accurate, more comprehensive, and timelier than those by the state-controlled media. Moreover, only articles by the market-oriented media have a significant corporate governance impact. Subsample analyses, interviews with journalists, and a survey of university students suggest that the market-oriented media’s superior effects are explained by their operating efficiency and independence.

Keywords: Media coverage, media concentration, political capture, CEO turnover

JEL Classification: G32, G34, J33, M41

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

You, Jiaxing and Zhang, Bohui and Zhang, Le, Who Captures the Power of the Pen? (January 16, 2017). Review of Financial Studies, 2018,43–96, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2403608 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2403608