Bank-dominated System Research Articles

Main bank relationship and accounting conservatism: evidence from Japan

In a market-oriented economy like the USA, the process of monitoring through lending mitigates lenders’ demand for accounting conservatism. Japanese corporate governance is characterized as a bank-dominated or relationship-oriented system. Under bank-dominated systems, main banks are expected to be effective monitors. In our model, main banks play the role of reducing the lenders’ demand for accounting conservatism by reducing information asymmetry. We find that main banks can reduce the demand for accounting conservatism. Our findings help understand accounting conservatism vis-a-vis agency problems. We provide empirical evidence to contribute to literature on banking, specifically to fields such as relationship banking.