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.

We hypothesize that short selling has a disciplining role vis-à-vis firm managers that forces them to reduce earnings management. Using firm-level short-selling data for thirty-three countries collected over a sample period from 2002 to 2009, we document a significantly negative relationship between the threat of short selling and earnings management. Tests based on instrumental variable and exogenous regulatory experiments offer evidence of a causal link between short selling and earnings management. Our findings suggest that short selling functions as an external governance mechanism to discipline managers.

We study how political capture affects the corporate governance role of the media. Relying on a unique media market in China that is characterized by the prevalence of both state-controlled and market-oriented media, we manually construct a comprehensive financial news sample containing 80,008 articles during the 2004–2010 period and provide evidence that negative coverage by the market-oriented media significantly increases the chance of forced top executive turnover, whereas similar coverage by the state-controlled media has no such impact. A multi-pronged approach that includes an instrumental variable test, an exogenous event, firm fixed effects, and change-in-change specifications provides positive evidence of the casual link. Further analysis reveals that the disciplinary effect of the market-oriented media is stronger for firms that are less likely to be influenced by political capture, such as non-state-owned firms or firms located in provinces with good institutions.

We hypothesize that short selling has a disciplining role vis-à-vis firm managers that forces them to reduce earnings management. Using firm-level short-selling data for thirty-three countries collected over a sample period from 2002 to 2009, we document a significantly negative relationship between the threat of short selling and earnings management. Tests based on instrumental variable and exogenous regulatory experiments offer evidence of a causal link between short selling and earnings management. Our findings suggest that short selling functions as an external governance mechanism to discipline managers.

We show that global political uncertainty, measured by the U.S. election cycle, on average, leads to a fall in equity returns in fifty non-U.S. countries. At the same time, market volatilities rise, local currencies depreciate, and sovereign bond returns increase. The effect of global political uncertainty on equity prices increases with the level of uncertainty in U.S. election outcomes and a country’s equity market exposure to foreign investors, but does not vary with the country’s international trade exposure. These findings suggest that global political uncertainty increases investors’ aggregate risk aversion, leading to a flight to safety.