Confucian culture and accounting conservatism: evidence from China

Xingqiang Du, Yuhui Xie, Shaojuan Lai and Quan Zeng

China Journal of Accounting Studies, 2022, vol. 10, issue 4, 549-589

Abstract: This study investigates the influence of Confucian culture on accounting conservatism. Using a sample of Chinese-listed firms during the period of 2001–2017, our findings reveal that Confucian culture, measured as the number of Confucian temples (schools) within a specific radius around a firm, is significantly positively associated with accounting conservatism, suggesting that Confucian ethics and culture promote accounting conservatism. Moreover, litigation risk attenuates the positive effect of Confucian culture on accounting conservatism. The above findings are robust to a variety of sensitivity tests using alternative proxies for Confucian culture and accounting conservatism. Furthermore, our main conclusions still stand after using the instrumental variable (IV) two-stage regression method and the differential model approach to address the endogeneity issue. Lastly, the positive effect of Confucian culture on accounting conservatism is only valid for non-BIG4-audited firms, firms with lower managerial ownership and firms in highly competitive industries.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/21697213.2022.2143688 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:rcjaxx:v:10:y:2022:i:4:p:549-589

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rcja20

DOI: 10.1080/21697213.2022.2143688

Access Statistics for this article

China Journal of Accounting Studies is currently edited by Xiaochen Dou

More articles in China Journal of Accounting Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().