Earnings Management and Investor Protection: An International Comparison

Are women greener? Corporate gender diversity and environmental violations

Looking in the Rearview Mirror: The Effect of Managers’ Professional Experience on Corporate Financial Policy

Does board gender diversity affect renewable energy consumption

The aim of this study is to examine whether gender diversity on audit committees (hereinafter, ACs) influences financial reporting quality by using panel data of Spanish listed firms. The financial reporting quality of firms is measured by the type of opinion received in the audit report. We estimate various panel data models of audit opinions and control for factors that are traditionally found to impact audit opinions. This study provides evidence to support the hypotheses that the percentage of females on ACs reduces the probability of qualifications due to errors, non-compliance or the omission of information. Furthermore, the results also find that the percentage of female directors on ACs, the percentage of independent female directors on ACs and ACs chaired by females increase the likelihood of further transparency by disclosing audit reports with uncertainties and scope limitation qualifications.

Corporate governance, female directors and quality of financial information

https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/ws/files/125627724/Full_text_PDF_accepted_author_manuscript_.pdf

The monitoring role of female directors over accounting quality

Recent research in accounting suggests female directors exert more stringent monitoring over the financial reporting process than their male counterparts. However, an emerging literature in finance and economics questions whether females in leadership roles significantly differ from their male counterparts. Building on this literature, we re-examine the link between the presence of female directors, gender biases, and financial statements quality. Using a large sample of UK firms we find that a larger percentage of women among independent directors is significantly associated with lower earnings management practices. However, we show that this relation disappears if we focus on firms that do not discriminate against women in the access to directorships. Finally, we provide evidence that gender biases are associated with lower earnings quality. We interpret our results as consistent with (1) prior evidence that males and females do not differ substantially when performing the same role in highly specialized positions, and with (2) discrimination being an important factor explaining the association between female directors and accounting quality.

The Monitoring Role of Female Directors Over Accounting Quality

Using employment history of over 17,000 directors of non-financial firms, we find that boards with directors who have executive experience in a commercial bank compensate CEOs with higher inside debt. This result is consistent with arguments that professional experience shapes decision-making. The experience effect dominates the potential conflict of interest effect. In line with the experience argument, the result holds for both current and past bank executives and for directors from both banks which are and banks which are not the firm’s creditors. These results are robust to several specifications addressing potential endogeneity. The increase in inside debt associated with banker-directors moves the CEO’s incentives closer to the optimum in which agency costs of outside debt are minimized to benefit shareholders. In line with the monitoring role of bankers, we also find that the link between inside debt and banker-directors is stronger in firms with weaker corporate governance standards.

Banker-Directors and CEO Inside Debt

CEO Industry Tournaments and Conditional Conservatism

We study the effect of the pay gap between the chief executive officer (CEO) and the next layer of executives in the top management team (TMT)—a proxy for promotion-based tournament incentives—on conditional conservatism in financial reporting. We find that higher levels of tournament incentives are associated with less conservative financial reports. Our results hold in an instrumental variable (IV) analysis and regressions using alternative measures of both pay gap and accounting conservatism. Furthermore, we find that senior executives’ engagement in tournaments for promotion is affected by their perceived probability of success. Specifically, the negative relationship between the pay gap and conservatism is stronger (weaker) when the CEO is more (less) likely to be replaced. Overall, our results indicate that pay disparities within the TMT play an important role in financial reporting.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00014788.2022.2056119?needAccess=true

Mariano P Scapin

Papers

The monitoring role of female directors over accounting quality

The Monitoring Role of Female Directors Over Accounting Quality

Banker-Directors and CEO Inside Debt

CEO Industry Tournaments and Conditional Conservatism

The effect of pay disparities within top management on conservative reporting