[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jocaae/v15y2019i1p118-130.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Short selling and financial reporting quality: Evidence from Chinese AH shares

Author

Listed:
  • Jiang, Haiyan
  • Chen, Jun
Abstract
This paper investigates whether the monitoring function of short sale on firms’ financial reporting quality is conditional on the regulatory quality of the markets, and the strength of internal control at firm level. Using data on Chinese cross-listing AH-shares over the period of 2010–2015, we find that short sale restricts accrual earnings management in A-share markets but not in the H-share market. This difference is explained by the relative inferiority of the A-share markets’ regulatory quality, and is accentuated when the cross-listing AH-share firms have weak internal control. Taken together, the results indicate that short-sellers impose strong monitoring on reporting quality when they perceive a great likelihood of managerial expropriation in a weak legal environment, or in firms with weak internal control.

Suggested Citation

  • Jiang, Haiyan & Chen, Jun, 2019. "Short selling and financial reporting quality: Evidence from Chinese AH shares," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 118-130.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jocaae:v:15:y:2019:i:1:p:118-130
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jcae.2019.01.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1815566919300128
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jcae.2019.01.001?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.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jonathan M. Karpoff & Xiaoxia Lou, 2010. "Short Sellers and Financial Misconduct," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(5), pages 1879-1913, October.
    2. Karl B. Diether & Kuan-Hui Lee & Ingrid M. Werner, 2009. "Short-Sale Strategies and Return Predictability," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(2), pages 575-607, February.
    3. Bai, Min & Qin, Yafeng, 2015. "Short sales constraints and price adjustments to earnings announcements: Evidence from the Hong Kong market," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 304-315.
    4. Ray Ball, 2006. "International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS): pros and cons for investors," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(S1), pages 5-27.
    5. David Hirshleifer & Siew Hong Teoh & Jeff Jiewei Yu, 2011. "Short Arbitrage, Return Asymmetry, and the Accrual Anomaly," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(7), pages 2429-2461.
    6. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:6:p:2205-2223 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Ding, Yuan & Su, Xijia, 2008. "Implementation of IFRS in a regulated market," Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 474-479.
    8. Owen A. Lamont, 2012. "Go Down Fighting: Short Sellers vs. Firms," The Review of Asset Pricing Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 2(1), pages 1-30.
    9. Ashbaugh-Skaife, Hollis & Collins, Daniel W. & Kinney Jr., William R., 2007. "The discovery and reporting of internal control deficiencies prior to SOX-mandated audits," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(1-2), pages 166-192, September.
    10. Vivian W. Fang & Allen H. Huang & Jonathan M. Karpoff, 2016. "Short Selling and Earnings Management: A Controlled Experiment," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(3), pages 1251-1294, June.
    11. Eric C. Chang & Joseph W. Cheng & Yinghui Yu, 2007. "Short‐Sales Constraints and Price Discovery: Evidence from the Hong Kong Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(5), pages 2097-2121, October.
    12. Chung, Tsz-Kin & Hui, Cho-Hoi & Li, Ka-Fai, 2013. "Explaining share price disparity with parameter uncertainty: Evidence from Chinese A- and H-shares," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 1073-1083.
    13. Arturo Bris & William N. Goetzmann & Ning Zhu, 2007. "Efficiency and the Bear: Short Sales and Markets Around the World," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1029-1079, June.
    14. Roychowdhury, Sugata, 2006. "Earnings management through real activities manipulation," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 335-370, December.
    15. Jones, Charles M. & Lamont, Owen A., 2002. "Short-sale constraints and stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2-3), pages 207-239.
    16. Ji, Xu-dong & Lu, Wei & Qu, Wen, 2015. "Determinants and economic consequences of voluntary disclosure of internal control weaknesses in China," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 1-17.
    17. Ekkehart Boehmer & Charles M. Jones & Xiaoyan Zhang, 2008. "Which Shorts Are Informed?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(2), pages 491-527, April.
    18. Chen, Kevin C.W. & Chen, Zhihong & Wei, K.C. John, 2009. "Legal protection of investors, corporate governance, and the cost of equity capital," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 273-289, June.
    19. Bushman, Robert M. & Smith, Abbie J., 2001. "Financial accounting information and corporate governance," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1-3), pages 237-333, December.
    20. Massimo Massa & Bohui Zhang & Hong Zhang, 2015. "The Invisible Hand of Short Selling: Does Short Selling Discipline Earnings Management?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 28(6), pages 1701-1736.
    21. Robert M. Bushman & Joseph D. Piotroski & Abbie J. Smith, 2004. "What Determines Corporate Transparency?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(2), pages 207-252, May.
    22. Chen, Crystal Xiaobei & Rhee, S. Ghon, 2010. "Short sales and speed of price adjustment: Evidence from the Hong Kong stock market," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 471-483, February.
    23. Jiang, Wei & Rupley, Kathleen Hertz & Wu, Jia, 2010. "Internal control deficiencies and the issuance of going concern opinions," Research in Accounting Regulation, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 40-46.
    24. Engelberg, Joseph E. & Reed, Adam V. & Ringgenberg, Matthew C., 2012. "How are shorts informed?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(2), pages 260-278.
    25. Berkman, Henk & Cole, Rebel A. & Fu, Lawrence J., 2009. "Expropriation through loan guarantees to related parties: Evidence from China," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 141-156, January.
    26. Mitchell A. Petersen, 2009. "Estimating Standard Errors in Finance Panel Data Sets: Comparing Approaches," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 435-480, January.
    27. Peng, Songlan & Tondkar, Rasoul H. & van der Laan Smith, Joyce & Harless, David W., 2008. "Does Convergence of Accounting Standards Lead to the Convergence of Accounting Practices?: A Study from China," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 448-468, December.
    28. Nilabhra Bhattacharya & Hemang Desai & Kumar Venkataraman, 2013. "Does Earnings Quality Affect Information Asymmetry? Evidence from Trading Costs," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(2), pages 482-516, June.
    29. Jun Chen & Alireza Tourani-Rad & Ronghua Yi, 2016. "Short sales and price discovery of Chinese cross-listed firms," International Journal of Managerial Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 12(4), pages 408-421, August.
    30. Kim, Yongtae & Park, Myung Seok, 2009. "Market uncertainty and disclosure of internal control deficiencies under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act," Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 419-445, September.
    31. Ekkehart Boehmer & Charles M. Jones & Xiaoyan Zhang, 2013. "Shackling Short Sellers: The 2008 Shorting Ban," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 26(6), pages 1363-1400.
    32. Ekkehart Boehmer & Juan (Julie) Wu, 2013. "Short Selling and the Price Discovery Process," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 26(2), pages 287-322.
    33. Chen, Jun & Kadapakkam, Palani-Rajan & Yang, Ting, 2016. "Short selling, margin trading, and the incorporation of new information into prices," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 1-17.
    34. Kothari, S.P. & Leone, Andrew J. & Wasley, Charles E., 2005. "Performance matched discretionary accrual measures," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 163-197, February.
    35. Mark H. Lang & Karl V. Lins & Darius P. Miller, 2004. "Concentrated Control, Analyst Following, and Valuation: Do Analysts Matter Most When Investors Are Protected Least?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(3), pages 589-623, June.
    36. Bai, Min & Qin, Yafeng, 2014. "Short-sales constraints and liquidity change: Cross-sectional evidence from the Hong Kong Market," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 98-122.
    37. Yimin Zhang & Ronald Zhao, 2003. "Risk under "One Country and Two Systems": Evidence from Class A, B and H Shares of Chinese Listed Companies," Review of Pacific Basin Financial Markets and Policies (RPBFMP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 6(02), pages 179-197.
    38. Pedro A. C. Saffi & Kari Sigurdsson, 2011. "Price Efficiency and Short Selling," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(3), pages 821-852.
    39. Dechow, Patricia M. & Hutton, Amy P. & Meulbroek, Lisa & Sloan, Richard G., 2001. "Short-sellers, fundamental analysis, and stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 77-106, July.
    40. Ball, Ray & Robin, Ashok & Wu, Joanna Shuang, 2003. "Incentives versus standards: properties of accounting income in four East Asian countries," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1-3), pages 235-270, December.
    41. Boubakri, Narjess & Cosset, Jean-Claude & Guedhami, Omrane, 2005. "Postprivatization corporate governance: The role of ownership structure and investor protection," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 369-399, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Sha, Yezhou & Shah, Syed Ghulam Meran & Sarfraz, Muddassar, 2023. "Short selling and SME irregular CEO succession: Witnessing the moderating role of earnings management," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 163-173.
    2. Haiyan Jiang & Gary Tian & Donghua Zhou, 2021. "The influence of the deregulation of short‐selling on related‐party transactions: Evidence from China," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(5-6), pages 1022-1056, May.
    3. Wenzhen Mai & Nik Intan Norhan Binti Abdul Hamid, 2021. "The Moderating Effect of Family Business Ownership on the Relationship between Short-Selling Mechanism and Firm Value for Listed Companies in China," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-20, May.
    4. GuoHua Cao & WenJun Geng & Jing Zhang & Qi Li, 2023. "Financial constraints, short selling and corporate fraud: Evidence from China," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(2), pages 297-320, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bessler, Wolfgang & Vendrasco, Marco, 2022. "Short-selling restrictions and financial stability in Europe: Evidence from the Covid-19 crisis," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    2. Haiyan Jiang & Ahsan Habib & Mostafa Monzur Hasan, 2022. "Short Selling: A Review of the Literature and Implications for Future Research," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(1), pages 1-31, January.
    3. Connelly, Brian L. & Shi, Wei & Cheng, Xin & Yin, Cheng, 2021. "Short Sellers: A screening theory perspective on B2B relationships," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 393-404.
    4. He, Meng & Bai, Xuelian & Zhang, Junrui, 2024. "Does short selling reduce classification shifting?—— Exploration of market-oriented governance mechanism," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    5. Bessler, Wolfgang & Vendrasco, Marco, 2021. "The 2020 European short-selling ban and the effects on market quality," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 42(C).
    6. Xu Guo & Chunchi Wu, 2022. "Short Selling Activity and Effects on Financial Markets and Corporate Decisions," Springer Books, in: Cheng-Few Lee & Alice C. Lee (ed.), Encyclopedia of Finance, edition 0, chapter 98, pages 2313-2340, Springer.
    7. Brockman, Paul & Luo, Juan & Xu, Limin, 2020. "The impact of short-selling pressure on corporate employee relations," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    8. Stephen L. Lenkey, 2021. "Informed Trading with a Short-Sale Prohibition," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(3), pages 1803-1824, March.
    9. Massa, Massimo & Qian, Wenlan & Xu, Weibiao & Zhang, Hong, 2015. "Competition of the informed: Does the presence of short sellers affect insider selling?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(2), pages 268-288.
    10. Chen, Shenglan & Chou, Robin K. & Liu, Xiaoling & Wu, Yuhui, 2020. "Deregulation of short-selling constraints and cost of bank loans: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    11. Callen, Jeffrey L. & Fang, Xiaohua, 2015. "Short interest and stock price crash risk," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 181-194.
    12. Chen, Huimin (Amy) & Wu, Qiang, 2021. "Short selling threat and real activity manipulation: Evidence from a natural experiment," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    13. Nezafat, Mahdi & Schroder, Mark & Wang, Qinghai, 2017. "Short-sale constraints, information acquisition, and asset prices," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 273-312.
    14. Massimo Massa & Bastian von Beschwitz, 2015. "Biased Shorts: Short sellers’ Disposition Effect and Limits to Arbitrage," International Finance Discussion Papers 1147, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    15. von Beschwitz, Bastian & Massa, Massimo, 2020. "Biased short: Short sellers' disposition effect and limits to arbitrage," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    16. Asher Curtis & Neil L. Fargher, 2014. "Does Short Selling Amplify Price Declines or Align Stocks with Their Fundamental Values?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(9), pages 2324-2340, September.
    17. Hu, Ting & Chi, Yanzhe, 2019. "Can short selling activity predict the future returns of non-shortable peer firms?," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 165-185.
    18. Ge-zhi Wu & Da-ming You, 2021. "Margin trading, short selling and corporate green innovation," Papers 2107.11255, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2021.
    19. Nilabhra Bhattacharya & Theodore E. Christensen & Qunfeng Liao & Bo Ouyang, 2022. "Can short sellers constrain aggressive non-GAAP reporting?," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 391-440, June.
    20. Chang, Eric C. & Luo, Yan & Ren, Jinjuan, 2014. "Short-selling, margin-trading, and price efficiency: Evidence from the Chinese market," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 411-424.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Short selling; Financial reporting quality; Cross listing;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets
    • G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General
    • M00 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - General - - - General
    • M40 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - General

    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:eee:jocaae:v:15:y:2019:i:1:p:118-130. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-contemporary-accounting-and-economics .

    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.