Corporate Governance and Financial Outcomes: A Multi-Country Study of BRICS

This study examines the association between corporate governance and firm-level financial outcomes across the BRICS economies from 2013 to 2023. A multidimensional Corporate Governance Index (CGI), comprising five sub-indices and thirty-one attributes, is constructed to examine how governance frameworks are related to firm-level outcomes in evolving institutional environments. Using panel regression analysis on a dataset of publicly traded firms, the study focuses on three core dimensions of firm performance, i.e., cost of capital (COC), return on capital employed (ROCE), and working capital efficiency (WC). The findings suggest that governance is associated with variations in financing costs and firm performance indicators, although the strength and consistency of these relationships vary across the BRICS economies. The results also highlight cross-country differences, which are interpreted in light of institutional variation in regulatory and enforcement environments across BRICS economies. Additional sensitivity analysis indicates that the findings are not driven by the specific construction of the governance index. Overall, the study contributes to the literature by providing comparative evidence on governance and firm outcomes in emerging markets, while emphasizing that the results should be interpreted as associational rather than causal.