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International Evidence On Analyst Monitoring And Earnings Management: The Roles Of Corporate Disclosure And National Culture, Soongsoo Han, Tony Kang, Gerald Lobo, Yong Keun Yoo

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We examine country-level determinants of private information search incentives, and whether analysts’ role in constraining managers’ opportunistic earnings management varies across countries. In a sample of 31,312 firm-year observations originating from 30 countries, we document that: (1) analyst coverage is negatively (positively) related to the level of corporate disclosure (how secretive the national culture is); (2) the negative association between analyst coverage and earnings management is observed in stronger investor protection countries but not in weaker investor protection countries; and (3) analyst monitoring fails to mitigate culturedriven earnings manipulations in countries with more individualistic and uncertainty-tolerant cultures. Taken together, financial …