The association between corporate governance reform and earnings management: empirical evidence from a unique regulatory environment

Abstract

This study takes advantage of a natural experiment to detect the existence of earnings management and identify some of the regulatory and institutional factors that might contribute to it. A panel dataset of 1322 firm-year observations of non-financial firms listed at the Amman Stock Exchange is investigated. The results suggest that the capital market regulations of Jordanian firms have spurred managers to use adjusted earnings to remain trading in the first market, as well as convert from the second to the first market. It also finds that the level of discretionary accruals is reduced significantly with the passage of the corporate governance code. This study supports positive accounting theory by adding new evidence to the ongoing debate about how governmental regulations may create an incentive for firms to manipulate their earnings. It also corroborates the assumptions of agency theory and extends its application to some developing capital markets.