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Does the cutoff of “red capital” raise a red flag? Political connections and stock price crash risk

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  • Zhang, Min
  • Liu, Yaosong
  • Xie, Lu
  • Ye, Tingting

Abstract

Using a Chinese exogenous regulatory setting that forbids political officials from sitting on boards, we investigate whether disruption to political connections induced by independent director’s forced resignation increases the firm’s stock price crash risk. The results show that firms announcing resignations of politically-connected independent directors after the regulation experience a significant increase in crash risk, suggesting that disruption to political connections intensifies managers’ bad-news hoarding behavior and makes firms more crash-prone. We further find that the negative impact of disrupted political connections on crash risk is less pronounced in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) than that in non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs). Moreover, the association is more salient when the resigned director has a geographic and industrial working background overlapping with the firm’s operation. Our findings are consistent with the notion that heightened resource acquisition pressure caused by disruption to political networks increases stock price crash risk.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhang, Min & Liu, Yaosong & Xie, Lu & Ye, Tingting, 2017. "Does the cutoff of “red capital” raise a red flag? Political connections and stock price crash risk," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 89-109.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecofin:v:39:y:2017:i:c:p:89-109
    DOI: 10.1016/j.najef.2016.12.002
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    4. Changzheng Zhang & Jiao Zhang & Qian Guo, 2018. "Can Political Connections Of Independent Directors Improve Firm Perfomance? Evidence Of Chinese Listed Manufacturing Companies Over 2008 - 2013," Malaysian E Commerce Journal (MECJ), Zibeline International Publishing, vol. 2(2), pages 5-12, January.
    5. Liu, Baohua & Lin, Yan & Chan, Kam C. & Fung, Hung-Gay, 2018. "The dark side of rent-seeking: The impact of rent-seeking on earnings management," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 94-107.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Political connections; Mandatory resignations; Stock price crash risk; Ownership property; Geographic and industrial relevance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • G38 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • H70 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - General

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