This paper tests the relationship between ownership/leadership structures and stock returns for firms listed in Taiwan. A "Governance Index" is built based on four different aspects of the company's governance structure: 1. CEO duality, 2. Size of the board of directors, 3. Managements' holdings and 4. Block shareholders' holding. This index is used as a proxy measure of the effectiveness of the corporate governance mechanism. We propose that firms under good governance should outperform those under poor governance. We find a striking relationship between our governance index and stock performance of firms. The results imply that our corporate governance index is successful in evaluating the effectiveness of the governance mechanism of firms in Taiwan. Copyright (c) 2007 The Authors; Journal compilation (c) 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Most of the socioeconomic loss with open surgery for benign cranial base tumors comes from the indirect costs of workdays lost and mortality. Gamma knife radiosurgery is a worthwhile treatment to our patients and to our society because it may shorten hospital stays and workdays lost and reduce complications, mortality, socioeconomic loss, and achieve better cost-effectiveness.

The valuation of accounting earnings is related to the level of earnings management used by the firm. In emerging markets where earnings management is typically pervasive, investors lose confidence in accounting earnings and thus tend to under‐value earnings. Using data from Taiwan, we show that better governance characteristics are associated with improved investor valuation of accounting earnings. Under weaker governance structures, such as excessive control on the part of majority shareholders, small board size, and chief executive officer/chairman of the board duality, the market tends to under‐value accounting earnings. Reducing controlling shareholders' ownership, increasing board size, and reinforcing the monitoring function of the board improves investors' ability to value accounting earnings. Copyright © 2010 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.