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The Effect Of Board Independence On Information Asymmetry, Beng Wee Goh, Jimmy Lee, Jeffrey Ng, Kevin Ow Yong
The Effect Of Board Independence On Information Asymmetry, Beng Wee Goh, Jimmy Lee, Jeffrey Ng, Kevin Ow Yong
Research Collection School Of Accountancy
Boards have an important role in ensuring that investors’ interests are protected. Our paper first examines whether the independence of a firm's board affects information asymmetry among investors. We provide evidence that greater board independence leads to lower information asymmetry. Next, we provide evidence that more voluntary disclosure and greater analyst coverage are two underlying mechanisms via which greater board independence reduces information asymmetry. Of the two mechanisms, we find that analyst coverage is more significant in influencing how board independence affects information asymmetry. Overall, our paper contributes to a better understanding of the effect of board independence on information …
Does Increased Board Independence Reduce Earnings Management? Evidence From Recent Regulatory Reforms, Qiang Cheng, Xia Chen, Xin Wang
Does Increased Board Independence Reduce Earnings Management? Evidence From Recent Regulatory Reforms, Qiang Cheng, Xia Chen, Xin Wang
Research Collection School Of Accountancy
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 …
Does Increased Board Independence Reduce Earnings Management? Evidence From The Recent Regulatory Reform, Xia Chen, Qiang Cheng, Xin Wang
Does Increased Board Independence Reduce Earnings Management? Evidence From The Recent Regulatory Reform, Xia Chen, Qiang Cheng, Xin Wang
Research Collection School Of Accountancy
We examine whether recent regulatory reforms requiring majority board independence reduce the extent of earnings management. Firms that did not have a majority of independent directors before the reforms (referred to as noncompliant firms) are required to increase their board independence. We find that, while noncompliant firms on average do not experience a significant decrease in earnings management after the reforms compared to other firms, noncompliant firms with low information acquisition cost experience a significant reduction in earnings management. The results are similar when we examine audit committee independence and when we use alternative proxies for information acquisition cost and …
Do Firms Hedge Optimally? Evidence From An Exogenous Governance Change, Sterling Zhenrui Huang, Urs Peyer, Benjamin Segal
Do Firms Hedge Optimally? Evidence From An Exogenous Governance Change, Sterling Zhenrui Huang, Urs Peyer, Benjamin Segal
Research Collection School Of Accountancy
We ask whether firms hedge optimally by analyzing the impact the NYSE/NASDAQ listing rule changes have had, which exogenously imposed board composition changes on a subset of firms, on financial risk management. Using new proxies for the extent of financial risk management in non-financial firms we find that treated firms reduce their financial hedging, in a difference-in-difference framework. The reduction is concentrated in firms with higher conflicts of interests, such as a high CEO equity ownership level, which exposes them to more idiosyncratic risk, and a higher occurrence of option backdating. We reject the hypothesis that newly majority-independent boards reduce …