Publication Type
Journal Article
Publication Date
6-2015
Abstract
In this paper, we examine whether recent regulatory reforms requiring majority board independence are effective in reducing earnings management. Firms that did not have a majority of independent directors prior to the reforms (referred to as non-compliance firms) are required to increase their board independence. We find that overall, compared to the other firms, noncompliance firms do not experience a significant decrease in the extent of earnings management from prior to the reforms to afterwards. However, we find that non-compliance firms with low information acquisition cost experience a significant reduction in earnings management compared with the other firms. The results hold for various proxies for information acquisition cost and earnings management. These findings indicate that independent directors’ monitoring is more effective in a richer information environment.
Keywords
earnings management, corporate governance, board independence, information environment
Discipline
Accounting | Corporate Finance
Research Areas
Corporate Reporting and Disclosure
Publication
American Accounting Association Annual Meeting
Volume
20
Issue
2
First Page
899
Last Page
933
ISSN
1380-6653
Identifier
10.1007/s11142-015-9316-0
Publisher
Springer Verlag (Germany)
City or Country
Denver, CO
Citation
CHENG, Qiang; CHEN, Xia; and WANG, Xin.
Does increased board independence reduce earnings management? Evidence from recent regulatory reforms. (2015). American Accounting Association Annual Meeting. 20, (2), 899-933.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soa_research/866
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11142-015-9316-0