CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND PERFORMANCE OF FIRMS IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: THE ROLE OF CAPITAL STRUCTURE

Return on Assets (ROA) Earing after interest and tax divided by total assets Return on Equity (ROE) Earnings before interest and tax divided by total equity. Leverage Ratio of total debt to total assets Audit committee size Total members of audit committee Female Director Proportion of female board directors and total directors Ownership concentration Proportion of common stock held by the top shareholders. Audit Reputation Dummy variables where 1 is used to represent whether a firm uses one of the top four auditing firms, and zero otherwise. Board independence Proportion of outside director and total directors Firm size (SIZE) Natural logarithm of Total Assets资产收益率（Return on Assets, ROA）：息税后收益除以总资产 净资产收益率（Return on Equity, ROE）：息税前收益除以总股权 杠杆率：总负债与总资产的比率 审计委员会规模：审计委员会的总成员数 女性董事占比：女性董事人数与董事会总人数的比例 股权集中度：前十大股东所持普通股的持股比例 审计声誉：虚拟变量，若企业聘用全球四大会计师事务所之一则取值为1，否则取值为0 董事会独立性：外部董事人数与董事会总人数的比例 企业规模（SIZE）：总资产的自然对数