IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/rqfnac/v44y2015i1p41-67.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Earnings management and government restrictions on outward foreign direct investment: evidence from Taiwanese firms

Author

Listed:
  • Rong-Ruey Duh
  • Audrey Hsu
  • Sidney Leung

Abstract

This study examines whether firms engage in earnings management to overcome government policies on limiting outward foreign direct investment (FDI), and whether their earnings-management behavior is aligned with shareholders’ interests. Using the regulatory setting in Taiwan, where the government has placed a cap on FDI in China for listed firms, we find that firms with FDI ratios near the limit (near-limit firms) are more likely to engage in income-increasing earnings management to shore up their shareholders’ equity, thus reducing their propensity to breach government policy. In addition, near-limit Taiwanese firms engaged in income-increasing earnings management show greater increases in FDI in China and better performance in the years following their earnings-management activities. We also find that the positive effects of earnings management on the future performance of these firms are driven by incremental FDI in China. The effects are more pronounced in firms with strong corporate governance. The results suggest that when the government’s restrictions on outward FDI are inconsistent with an individual firm’s objective of maximizing shareholder value, managers are motivated to use earnings-management strategies to circumvent governmental constraints on outward FDI. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Rong-Ruey Duh & Audrey Hsu & Sidney Leung, 2015. "Earnings management and government restrictions on outward foreign direct investment: evidence from Taiwanese firms," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 44(1), pages 41-67, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:rqfnac:v:44:y:2015:i:1:p:41-67
    DOI: 10.1007/s11156-013-0398-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11156-013-0398-0
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11156-013-0398-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Holthausen, Robert W., 1990. "Accounting method choice : Opportunistic behavior, efficient contracting, and information perspectives," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1-3), pages 207-218, January.
    2. Klein, April, 2002. "Audit committee, board of director characteristics, and earnings management," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 375-400, August.
    3. Thomas L Brewer, 1993. "Government Policies, Market Imperfections, and Foreign Direct Investment," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 24(1), pages 101-120, March.
    4. Palmrose, Zoe-Vonna & Richardson, Vernon J. & Scholz, Susan, 2004. "Determinants of market reactions to restatement announcements," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 59-89, February.
    5. Chung, Richard & Firth, Michael & Kim, Jeong-Bon, 2002. "Institutional monitoring and opportunistic earnings management," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 29-48, January.
    6. Degeorge, Francois & Patel, Jayendu & Zeckhauser, Richard, 1999. "Earnings Management to Exceed Thresholds," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 72(1), pages 1-33, January.
    7. Shivdasani, Anil, 1993. "Board composition, ownership structure, and hostile takeovers," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1-3), pages 167-198, April.
    8. Graham, John R. & Harvey, Campbell R. & Rajgopal, Shiva, 2005. "The economic implications of corporate financial reporting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1-3), pages 3-73, December.
    9. Bartov, Eli & Givoly, Dan & Hayn, Carla, 2002. "The rewards to meeting or beating earnings expectations," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 173-204, June.
    10. Steven M. Fazzari & R. Glenn Hubbard & Bruce C. Petersen, 1988. "Financing Constraints and Corporate Investment," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 19(1), pages 141-206.
    11. R. Glenn Hubbard, 1998. "Capital-Market Imperfections and Investment," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(1), pages 193-225, March.
    12. Benjamin Gomes-Casseres, 1990. "Firm Ownership Preferences and Host Government Restrictions: An Integrated Approach," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 21(1), pages 1-22, March.
    13. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    14. Bikki Jaggi & Chen-lung Chin & Hsiou-wei William Lin & Picheng Lee, 2006. "Earnings forecast disclosure regulation and earnings management: evidence from Taiwan IPO firms," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 26(3), pages 275-299, May.
    15. Subramanyam, K. R., 1996. "The pricing of discretionary accruals," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1-3), pages 249-281, October.
    16. Key, Kimberly Galligan, 1997. "Political cost incentives for earnings management in the cable television industry," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 309-337, November.
    17. Anton Miglo, 2008. "Can earnings manipulation create value?," Working Papers 0803, University of Guelph, Department of Economics and Finance.
    18. Jensen, Michael C, 1986. "Agency Costs of Free Cash Flow, Corporate Finance, and Takeovers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(2), pages 323-329, May.
    19. Yermack, David, 1996. "Higher market valuation of companies with a small board of directors," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 185-211, February.
    20. Honglin Zhang, Kevin, 2005. "Why does so much FDI from Hong Kong and Taiwan go to Mainland China?," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 293-307.
    21. Chee Lim & Tiong Thong & David Ding, 2008. "Firm diversification and earnings management: evidence from seasoned equity offerings," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 30(1), pages 69-92, January.
    22. Jones, Jj, 1991. "Earnings Management During Import Relief Investigations," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 193-228.
    23. Kothari, S.P. & Leone, Andrew J. & Wasley, Charles E., 2005. "Performance matched discretionary accrual measures," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 163-197, February.
    24. Steven Globerman & Daniel M Shapiro, 1999. "The Impact of Government Policies on Foreign Direct Investment: The Canadian Experience," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 30(3), pages 513-532, September.
    25. Burgstahler, David & Dichev, Ilia, 1997. "Earnings management to avoid earnings decreases and losses," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 99-126, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chen, Chien-Hsun, 2023. "Prospects for Taiwan’s Outward Investment in China," MPRA Paper 116578, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Zhaorui Guo & Kam C. Chan & Yunkui Xue, 2016. "The Impact of Corporate Culture Disclosure on Performance: A Quantitative Approach," Review of Pacific Basin Financial Markets and Policies (RPBFMP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 19(02), pages 1-29, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dechow, Patricia & Ge, Weili & Schrand, Catherine, 2010. "Understanding earnings quality: A review of the proxies, their determinants and their consequences," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 344-401, December.
    2. Alexandre Garel & Jose Martin-Flores & Arthur Petit-Romec & Ayesha Scott, 2021. "Institutional investor distraction and earnings management," Post-Print hal-03096196, HAL.
    3. Iatridis, George, 2010. "International Financial Reporting Standards and the quality of financial statement information," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 193-204, June.
    4. Sondes Draief & Adel Chouaya, 2012. "Effet de la gestion comptable et réelle des résultats sur le coût de la dette : analyse avant et après SOX," Post-Print hal-00691020, HAL.
    5. Garel, Alexandre & Martin-Flores, Jose M. & Petit-Romec, Arthur & Scott, Ayesha, 2021. "Institutional investor distraction and earnings management," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    6. Espahbodi, Reza & Liu, Nan & Weigand, Robert A., 2022. "Opportunistic earnings management or performance-related effects? Evidence from dividend-paying firms," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    7. Dung Viet Tran & M. Kabir Hassan & Reza Houston, 2020. "Discretionary loan loss provision behavior in the US banking industry," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 605-645, August.
    8. Jorge Farinha & Luis Filipe Viana, 2006. "Board structure and modified audit opinions: the case of the Portuguese Stock Exchange," CEF.UP Working Papers 0609, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    9. Dichev, Ilia D. & Graham, John R. & Harvey, Campbell R. & Rajgopal, Shiva, 2013. "Earnings quality: Evidence from the field," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 1-33.
    10. Chanchal Chatterjee, 2020. "Board Quality and Earnings Management: Evidence from India," Global Business Review, International Management Institute, vol. 21(5), pages 1302-1324, October.
    11. Biggerstaff, Lee & Cicero, David C. & Puckett, Andy, 2015. "Suspect CEOs, unethical culture, and corporate misbehavior," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(1), pages 98-121.
    12. Wenxia Ge & Jeong-Bon Kim, 2014. "Boards, takeover protection, and real earnings management," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 43(4), pages 651-682, November.
    13. Halaoua, Sameh & Hamdi, Badreddine & Mejri, Tarek, 2017. "Earnings management to exceed thresholds in continental and Anglo-Saxon accounting models: The British and French cases," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(PA), pages 513-529.
    14. Hribar, Paul & Jenkins, Nicole Thorne & Johnson, W. Bruce, 2006. "Stock repurchases as an earnings management device," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1-2), pages 3-27, April.
    15. Yu, Fang (Frank), 2008. "Analyst coverage and earnings management," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 245-271, May.
    16. Ujkan Bajra & Simon Cadez, 2018. "The Impact of Corporate Governance Quality on Earnings Management: Evidence from European Companies Cross†listed in the US," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 28(2), pages 152-166, June.
    17. Tsipouridou, Maria & Spathis, Charalambos, 2012. "Earnings management and the role of auditors in an unusual IFRS context: The case of Greece," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 62-78.
    18. Martin Nienhaus, 2022. "Executive equity incentives and opportunistic manager behavior: new evidence from a quasi-natural experiment," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 27(4), pages 1276-1318, December.
    19. Ahsan Habib & Md. Borhan Uddin Bhuiyan, 2016. "Overlapping Membership on Audit and Compensation Committees and Financial Reporting Quality," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 26(1), pages 76-90, March.
    20. Ng, Jeffrey & Wu, Hong & Zhai, Weihuan & Zhao, Jing, 2021. "The effect of shareholder activism on earnings management: Evidence from shareholder proposals11We appreciate the helpful comments and suggestions from Stephen Taylor, Gary Biddle, Santosh Ramalingego," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Foreign direct investment; Foreign direct investment policy; Earnings management; Regulatory restriction; F21; G18; K20; M41;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F21 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Investment; Long-Term Capital Movements
    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • K20 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - General
    • M41 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - Accounting

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:rqfnac:v:44:y:2015:i:1:p:41-67. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.