The relationship between corporate governance characteristics and agency costs

Abstract

The present study aims to evaluate the contributing factors to agency costs in Iran. In this regard, 112 companies were studied over 2010 - 2016. Since the model is dynamic and the dependent variable suffers from a lag, the generalized method of moments is employed to free the independent variables and the disruptive component. The findings indicate a significant lag in the dependent variable of all three models. An audit committee’s presence significantly affects the decline of agency costs in all three models. Moreover, results suggest that family companies and the state shareholders of all three models have no significant impact on the agency costs. The existence of financial leverage matching with all three models causes the decline of agency costs. In terms of assets, Larger companies based on the three models have more agency costs as well.

Keywords

• agency costs
• dynamic panel
• generalized method of moments
• factor analysis
• and audit committee