National civilized city award and corporate earnings management

Xuemei Xiong, Ruoting Zheng, Chenlan Liu and Xuanhao Huang

International Review of Financial Analysis, 2025, vol. 107, issue C

Abstract: Using China's civilized city selection campaign from 2005 to 2019 as a quasi-natural experiment, this study examines the impact of National Civilized City Award (NCCA) on corporate earnings management. We find that NCCA significantly exacerbates the earnings management of local firms. Mechanism tests indicate that political performance pressure and operational pressure on the firms amplify the positive relationship between NCCA and corporate earnings management. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that this relationship is particularly pronounced among non-state-owned firms, those subjected to weaker media supervision, and those lack of government subsidies. Additionally, further analysis shows that NCCA leads to an increase in the tax burden for corporations. This study contributes to the understanding of the economic implications associated with NCCA and provides empirical insights for enhancing urban development policies.

Keywords: Civilized cities; Earnings management; Political performance pressure; Operational pressure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1057521925007276
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:finana:v:107:y:2025:i:c:s1057521925007276

DOI: 10.1016/j.irfa.2025.104640

Access Statistics for this article

International Review of Financial Analysis is currently edited by B.M. Lucey

More articles in International Review of Financial Analysis from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().