International evidence on analyst monitoring and earnings management: The roles of corporate disclosure and national culture

• Main Authors: HAN, Soongsoo, KANG, Tony, LOBO, Gerald, YOO, Yong Keun
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2009
• Subjects: Analyst Coverage; Earnings Management; Corporate Disclosure; National Culture; Investor Protection; Finance and Financial Management; International Business; Portfolio and Security Analysis; Sociology of Culture
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soa_research/1745; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soa_research/article/2772/viewcontent/International_Evidence_on_Analyst_Monitoring_and_Earnings_Managem.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

We examine country-level determinants of private information search incentives, and whether analysts’ role in constraining managers’ opportunistic earnings management varies across countries. In a sample of 31,312 firm-year observations originating from 30 countries, we document that: (1) analyst coverage is negatively (positively) related to the level of corporate disclosure (how secretive the national culture is); (2) the negative association between analyst coverage and earnings management is observed in stronger investor protection countries but not in weaker investor protection countries; and (3) analyst monitoring fails to mitigate culturedriven earnings manipulations in countries with more individualistic and uncertainty-tolerant cultures. Taken together, financial analysts’ role in constraining opportunistic earnings management across countries appears to vary with corporate disclosure and cultural environments.