IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jlawec/doi10.1086-693096.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Political Bias in Corporate News: The Role of Conglomeration Reform in China

Author

Listed:
  • Joseph D. Piotroski
  • T. J. Wong
  • Tianyu Zhang

Abstract

Using textual analyses of 1.77 million articles, we find that, through the Chinese government's conglomeration reform that reorganizes official and nonofficial newspapers from the same locale into a news group under state control, there is an increase (decrease) in positive tone and political content in official (nonofficial) newspaper articles. The evidence is consistent with official newspapers becoming more concentrated on political goals and nonofficial newspapers becoming more focused on commercial objectives, thus better enabling the newspaper industry to pursue a dual role as the government's mouthpiece and an information institution supporting the market economy. Our results are robust to using a matched firm-month research design that examines the content of articles written about the same firm in the same month, a matched firm-event approach that examines concurrent newspaper articles published immediately following corporate earnings announcements, and a difference-in-differences approach to test for conglomeration effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Joseph D. Piotroski & T. J. Wong & Tianyu Zhang, 2017. "Political Bias in Corporate News: The Role of Conglomeration Reform in China," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 60(1), pages 173-207.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jlawec:doi:10.1086/693096
    DOI: 10.1086/693096
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/693096
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/693096
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/693096?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.

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Sun, Yunpeng & Lu, Zhou & Bao, Qun & Li, Ying & Li, Haoning, 2022. "The Belt & Road Initiative and the public and private debts of participating countries: The role of China's economic policy uncertainty," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 179-193.
    2. Ito, Asei & Lim, Jaehwan & Zhang, Hongyong, 2023. "Catching the political leader's signal: Economic policy uncertainty and firm investment in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    3. Sun, Fangcheng & Dutta, Shantanu & Huang, Hui & Zhu, Pengcheng, 2021. "News media and insider trading profitability: An emerging country perspective," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    4. Li Huang & Oliver Zhen Li & Yang Yi, 2021. "Government disclosure in influencing people’s behaviors during a public health emergency," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-15, December.
    5. Lei, Adrian C.H. & Song, Chen, 2022. "Economic policy uncertainty and stock market activity: Evidence from China," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    6. Lixiang Wang & Wendi Hou & Yupei Liu, 2023. "How do co‐shareholding networks affect negative media coverage? Evidence from China," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 63(4), pages 4221-4249, December.
    7. Ren, Wentao, 2023. "Retail investors' accessibility to the internet and firm-specific information flows: Evidence from Google's withdrawal," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 402-424.
    8. Liu, Zhuang & Wong, T.J. & Yi, Yang & Zhang, Tianyu, 2022. "Authoritarian transparency: China's missing cases in court disclosure," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 221-239.
    9. Liang, Qi & Sun, Wenjia & Li, Wenyu & Yu, Fengyan, 2021. "Media effects matter: Macroeconomic announcements in the gold futures market," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 1-12.
    10. Zijia Du & Alan Guoming Huang & Russ Wermers & Wenfeng Wu, 2022. "Language and Domain Specificity: A Chinese Financial Sentiment Dictionary [The effects of analyst-country institutions on biased research: Evidence from target prices]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 26(3), pages 673-719.
    11. Deng, Xiaohu & Jiang, Christine & Young, Danqing, 2021. "Short selling constraints and politically motivated negative information suppression," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    12. Yang, Jun & Lu, Jing & Xiang, Cheng, 2020. "Do disclosures of selective access improve market information acquisition fairness? Evidence from company visits in China," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    13. Minghui Li & Faqin Lan & Fang Zhang, 2019. "Why Chinese Financial Market Investors Do Not Care about Corporate Social Responsibility: Evidence from Mergers and Acquisitions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-34, June.
    14. Jerry Cao & Robert Faff & Jing He & Yong Li, 2022. "Who's Greenwashing Via the Media and What are the Consequences? Evidence From China," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 58(4), pages 759-786, December.
    15. Yi Ru & Jian Xue & Yuan Zhang & Xin Zhou, 2020. "Social connections between media and firm executives and the properties of media reporting," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 963-1001, September.
    16. LIM Jaehwan & ITO Asei & ZHANG Hongyong, 2023. "Policy Agenda and Trajectory of the Xi Jinping Administration: Textual Evidence from 2012 to 2022," Policy Discussion Papers 23008, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    17. Zhiqi Cao & Wenfeng Wu, 2023. "Difference of opinion among investors versus analysts," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 63(2), pages 2347-2381, June.
    18. Wu, Chunying & Xiong, Xiong & Gao, Ya, 2022. "The role of different information sources in information spread: Evidence from three media channels in China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 327-341.
    19. Guo, Shijun & Yu, Xin & Faff, Robert, 2021. "Political connections and media slant," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 58-80.
    20. Liu, Jun & Wu, Kai & Zhou, Ming, 2023. "News tone, investor sentiment, and liquidity premium," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 167-181.

    More about this item

    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:ucp:jlawec:doi:10.1086/693096. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JLE .

    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.