پذیرش متقاطع و کیفیت حسابداری
Abstract
1- Introduction
2- Prior literature and hypotheses development
3- H1 Cross-listing in the US stock market is positively associated to accounting quality.
4- Data and research methodology
5- Results
6- Conclusions
References
Abstract
Using 42,808 firm-year observations from 32 countries around the world, we investigate whether cross-listing in the US is associated with better accounting quality, and whether investor protection moderates the effect of cross-listing on accounting quality. Our main results show firms that are cross-listed in the US exhibit more timely reporting of losses, greater tendency to manage earnings downward, and more value relevance of accounting numbers as compared to their domestic counterparts. Cross-listed firms originating from high investor protection jurisdictions, particularly in high anti-director rights and common law countries, exhibit greater tendency to recognise a more timely reporting of losses and to manage earnings downward but exhibit lower value relevance of earnings as compared to cross-listed firms domiciled in low anti-director rights and non-common law countries. These results suggest that the strength of investor protection in home country plays an important role in determining the quality of accounting numbers of cross-listed firms.
Introduction
The financial globalization literature highlights that cross-listed firms would benefit in terms of increasing visibility, broadening the shareholder base, gaining access to financial markets, improving relations with the foreign financial community, and increasing demand for the firm’s stock (e.g., Siegel, 2005; He, 2008). Decision of foreign firms to list their shares particularly in the US securities markets (cross-listing hereafter) is driven by the quest for greater access to cheaper capital for funding growth opportunities (Hail and Leuz, 2009). This is due to the fact that cross-listed firms are subjected to the rigorous US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) requirements including various aspects of corporate governance. However, cross-listing results in an implicit contract between corporate governance of the firm’s home and host environments and raises questions on how much diffusion takes place between these two (Bauer et al., 2004). Evidence of accounting scandals (e.g., Tingting, 2014) brings into question the governance aspects of the cross-listed firms. In particular, despite having strong fundamental characteristics of being listed in the US stock exchanges, unethical issues of the cross-listed firms trigger concerns regarding their accounting quality.