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Emerging markets have common weaknesses in their financial market development. Financial development is one institutional force that shapes financing and governance of firms in emerging markets. Debt and equity are alternative governance instruments. Trade credit is part of debt and therefore should be treated as such in corporate governance. We used a fixed effect regression of financial sector development and trade credit of firms listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange to ascertain the relationship of financial sector development and trade credit. We also analyzed the Socially Responsible Index (SRI) which measures corporate governance. We find that good corporate governance practices do not result in substituting of trade credit, despite its high implicit costs, with bank loans for working capital financing.

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Accountability is instrumental for ensuring that a trusting relationship exists between shareholders and management of corporations in order that there will be enhanced investor confidence. Towards this end, corporate governance measures are instituted to make the executives or management of business organizations accountable for their stewardships of the organizational resources or shareholders' investments. It is against that backdrop that the Securities and Exchange Commission in Ghana has also developed a code on best practices on corporate governance. However, the extent to which the provisions in the code are consistent with the theoretical and empirical literature is unknown. This paper, therefore, sought to explore whether or not gaps exist between the corporate governance policy and practices in Ghana and extant literature. This paper achieves this by examining characteristics of the board as they exist in Ghana in relations to the literature. The characteristics examined in this paper include responsibilities, optimal size, independence, board composition, and audit and compensation committees of boards. Recommendations are made based on the literature to address gaps that exist.

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