The Change in corporate transparency of Korean firms after the Asian financial crisis: An analysis using analysts' forecast data

• Main Authors: CHANG, Jinho, CHO, Young Jun, SHIN, Hyun-Han
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2007
• Subjects: Asian financial crisis; analyst forecast error; analyst forecast dispersion; chaebol; information asymmetry; corporate transparency; Asian Studies; Finance and Financial Management; Portfolio and Security Analysis
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soa_research/1572; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soa_research/article/2599/viewcontent/Chang_et_al_2007_Corporate_Governance__An_International_Review__1_.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Using analysts' forecast error and forecast dispersion of firms covered by the I/B/E/S database, this study examines the change in information asymmetry of Korean firms around the financial crisis of 1997. Results show that the information asymmetry of Korean firms is lower after the financial crisis than before, implying that corporate transparency did, in effect, improve with the change in business environment. In addition, this study finds that chaebol firms have higher information asymmetry than non-chaebol firm, and also that the corporate transparency improvement of chaebol firms is not higher than that of non-chaebol firms in the post-crisis period despite the reforms particularly targeted to chaebol firms after the financial crisis.