Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Business Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics

Old Dominion University

Series

2021

Business ethics

Articles 1 - 1 of 1

Full-Text Articles in Business

Living Up To Your Codes? Corporate Codes Of Ethics And The Cost Of Equity Capital, Hong Kim Duong, Marco Fasan, Giorgio Gotti Jan 2021

Living Up To Your Codes? Corporate Codes Of Ethics And The Cost Of Equity Capital, Hong Kim Duong, Marco Fasan, Giorgio Gotti

Accounting Faculty Publications

Purpose-

Previous literature provides mixed evidence about the effectiveness of a code of ethics in limiting managerial opportunism. While some studies find that code of ethics is merely window-dressing, others find that they do influence managers' behavior. The present study investigates whether the quality of a code of ethics decreases the cost of equity by limiting managerial opportunism.

Design/methodology/approach-

In order to test the hypothesis, the authors perform an empirical analysis on a sample of US companies in the 2004–2012 period. The results are robust to a battery of robustness analyses that the authors performed in order to take care …