Ultimate parent's board reform and controlling shareholder entrenchment: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China

Abstract

This paper examines whether the strengthening of board monitoring at the level of the ultimate parent company reduces their expropriation from the listed subsidiaries. Using a quasi-natural experiment in China, we find that a high presence of outside directors on the ultimate parent company significantly reduce the parent company's tunneling from listed subsidiaries. Furthermore, the ultimate parent's board monitoring in reducing the tunneling is more salient when the ultimate parent company has strong management control in listed subsidiaries and complicated pyramid ownership structure in the listed subsidiaries.