Earnings Management in Frontier Market: Do Institutional Settings Matter?

Wil Martens, Prem Yapa and Maryam Safari
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Wil Martens: School of Business and Management, RMIT University, Hanoi 1000, Vietnam
Prem Yapa: School of Accounting, Information Systems & Supply Chain, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia
Maryam Safari: School of Accounting, Information Systems & Supply Chain, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia

Economies, 2021, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-19

Abstract: We analyse whether differences in earnings management practices in frontier countries can be explained by institutional settings, considering their diverse corporate governance environments, legal regimes, and accounting standards. Across 22 frontier market countries from 2000–2017, we find that financial disclosure, legal environments, and the number of analysts following to be correlated with reduced levels of earnings management (EM). The impact of wealth, GDP growth, firm size, and the use of Big-4 auditors were also associated with reduced EM. Contrary to developed markets and novel to this study, higher levels of societal trust failed to show significance in its ability to constrain EM, suggesting informal institutions are less influential as control monitors. Findings herein verify that the factors that moderate EM are not universally applicable, and help highlight international differences in the management of earnings.

Keywords: investor protection; earnings management; frontier markets; institutional settings (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E F I J O Q (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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