An Empirical Investigation of Agency Costs in the Determination of Performance of Pakistani Nonfinancial Sector

The study examines the performance and its relationship with capital structure and agency cost with respect to the industrial configurations and economic groups of Pakistan Economy. The study employs data set of 334 listed joint stock companies from the nonfinancial sectors for the period of 1999-2009 from cotton and textile, engineering, chemical, sugar, cement, fuel and energy, paper and board, transport and communication, and miscellaneous economic groups. Pooled data from the Panel data methodology has been applied to observe the significance of different performance measures through determinant of capital structure and agency costs with special focus on the leverage and cash flows as the direct determinant and interactive variables. The empirical test results using redundant variable tests demonstrate support for agency theory in the context of Pakistan's industrial configurations. The implications of the study point towards more investigations on the subject using industrial configurations as control and moderating variables.