Insider trading restrictions and earnings management

Beatriz Garcia Osma, Elvira Scarlat and Karin Shields

Accounting and Business Research, 2020, vol. 50, issue 3, 205-237

Abstract: We study whether firms that voluntarily restrict insider trading have lower incentives for earnings management. Using a large sample of US firms, we measure these restrictions based on the extent to which insider transactions happen shortly after quarterly earnings announcements. We find that the adoption of insider trading restrictions is associated with a reduction of 9.92% in absolute discretionary accruals. Our findings are robust to controlling for changes in corporate governance, and we do not find evidence of a substitution effect between accruals and real earnings management, target beating or timeliness of loss recognition. Taken together, our results indicate that the voluntary adoption of blackout periods that limit insider trading improves the quality of financial reporting.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1080/00014788.2020.1712650

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