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Insider trading, accrual abuse, and corporate governance in emerging markets — Evidence from Taiwan

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  • Tang, Hui-wen
  • Chen, Anlin
  • Chang, Chong-Chuo

Abstract

This study investigates the endogenous relationship between abnormal insider trading and accrual abuse, and explores whether corporate governance affects this relationship. Our results suggest that insiders take advantage of private information on abnormal accruals to time their trading and manipulate accruals opportunistically to mislead the stock market prior to their planned trading. More important, we find that the abuse of inside information for stock trading becomes more serious when a firm's ultimate controller has a great divergence of control rights (or seat-control rights) from cash flow rights. We also find that higher family ownership and control, increased managerial ownership, or a dual leadership structure not only induces more private information trading prior to financial reports disclosure, but also intensifies accrual abuse for future trading. The results for composite governance indices are also consistent with our expectation. Taken together, our evidence suggests that a poor corporate governance system interacts with abnormal insider trading and abnormal accruals, thereby aggravating insider expropriation on outside investors.

Suggested Citation

  • Tang, Hui-wen & Chen, Anlin & Chang, Chong-Chuo, 2013. "Insider trading, accrual abuse, and corporate governance in emerging markets — Evidence from Taiwan," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 132-155.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:pacfin:v:24:y:2013:i:c:p:132-155
    DOI: 10.1016/j.pacfin.2013.04.005
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    3. Wil Martens & Prem Yapa & Maryam Safari, 2021. "Earnings Management in Frontier Market: Do Institutional Settings Matter?," Economies, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-19, February.
    4. Chen, Anlin & Kao, Lanfeng & Lu, Cheng-Shou, 2014. "Controlling ownership and firm performance in Taiwan: The role of external competition and internal governance," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 219-238.
    5. Bryce, Mitchell & Ali, Muhammad Jahangir & Mather, Paul R., 2015. "Accounting quality in the pre-/post-IFRS adoption periods and the impact on audit committee effectiveness — Evidence from Australia," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 35(PA), pages 163-181.
    6. Debojyoti Das & Anupam Dutta & Rabin K. Jana & Indranil Ghosh, 2023. "The asymmetric impact of oil price uncertainty on emerging market financial stress: A quantile regression approach," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(4), pages 4299-4323, October.
    7. Yushu Zhu & Jennifer Gippel & Kathy Walsh, 2017. "Informed trading on debt covenant violations: the long and short of it," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 57(1), pages 289-315, March.
    8. Linlin Ye, 2016. "Understanding the Impacts of Dark Pools on Price Discovery," Papers 1612.08486, arXiv.org.
    9. Forough Heirany & Mahmoud Moeinadin & Manije Nazemizadeh, 2014. "The Role of Accrual Decomposition in Increasing the Information Value," International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Sciences, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Sciences, vol. 4(1), pages 309-318, January.
    10. Hui-Wen Tang & Chong-Chuo Chang, 2015. "Does corporate governance affect the relationship between earnings management and firm performance? An endogenous switching regression model," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 33-58, July.
    11. Boachie, Christopher & Mensah, Emmanuel, 2022. "The effect of earnings management on firm performance: The moderating role of corporate governance quality," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    12. Chong-Chuo Chang & Kuen-Shiou Yang, 2021. "Loose monetary policy and firm uncertainty," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 1(3), pages 1-27, March.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Abnormal accruals; Control rights; Corporate governance; Earnings management; Family control; Insider trading;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G02 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Behavioral Finance: Underlying Principles
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
    • G38 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Government Policy and Regulation

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