EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Internal control over financial reporting and managerial rent extraction: Evidence from the profitability of insider trading

Hollis A. Skaife, David Veenman and Daniel Wangerin

Journal of Accounting and Economics, 2013, vol. 55, issue 1, 91-110

Abstract: This paper examines the association between ineffective internal control over financial reporting and the profitability of insider trading. We predict and find that the profitability of insider trading is significantly greater in firms disclosing material weaknesses in internal control relative to firms with effective control. The positive association is present in the years leading up to the disclosure of material weaknesses, but disappears after remediation of the internal control problems. We find insider trading profitability is even greater when insiders are more likely to act in their own self-interest as indicated by auditors’ weak “tone at the top” adverse internal control opinions and this incremental profitability is driven by insider selling. Our research identifies a new setting where shareholders are most at risk for wealth transfers via insider trading and highlights market consequences of weak “tone at the top”.

Keywords: Insider trading; SOX 404; Internal control; Tone at the top; Management integrity; Management turnover (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D82 G32 J63 M41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (85)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165410112000584
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:jaecon:v:55:y:2013:i:1:p:91-110

DOI: 10.1016/j.jacceco.2012.07.005

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Accounting and Economics is currently edited by J. L. Zimmerman, S. P. Kothari, T. Z. Lys and R. L. Watts

More articles in Journal of Accounting and Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:eee:jaecon:v:55:y:2013:i:1:p:91-110