This study offers evidence on the earnings forecast bias analysts use to please firm management and the associated benefits they obtain from issuing such biased forecasts in the years prior to Regulation Fair Disclosure. Analysts who issue initial optimistic earnings forecasts followed by pessimistic earnings forecasts before the earnings announcement produce more accurate earnings forecasts and are less likely to be fired by their employers. The effect of such biased earnings forecasts on forecast accuracy and firing is stronger for analysts who follow firms with heavy insider selling and hard‐to‐predict earnings. The above results hold regardless of whether a brokerage firm has investment banking business or not. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that analysts use biased earnings forecasts to curry favor with firm management in order to obtain better access to management's private information.

We assess the impact of Regulation Fair Disclosure (Reg FD) on the trading behavior of transient institutional investors in the quarter prior to a bad news break in a string of consecutive earnings increases. Bad news breaks are defined as breaks that are by growth firms, preceded by longer strings of consecutive earnings increases, followed by longer strings of consecutive earnings decreases, and associated with larger declines in earnings. Pre–Reg FD transient institutions have abnormal selling of stocks in the quarter immediately preceding a bad news break. This abnormal selling is confined to firms that hold conference calls in the pre–Reg FD period. However, in the post–Reg FD period transient institutions do not exhibit similar abnormal selling of stocks in the quarter before a bad news break. Furthermore, after Reg FD transient institutions allocate less of their stock portfolios to conference call firms relative to non–conference call firms in the quarters prior to a bad news break. These results demonstrate that Reg FD has had an impact on management's selective disclosure behavior and significantly changed the trading behavior of transient institutions.

We compare the sensitivity of managerial cash compensation to firm performance, the level of long term managerial incentives, and the sensitivity of CEO turnover to firm performance for three types of state-controlled Chinese firms: A shares (firms incorporated and listed in mainland China), H shares (firms incorporated in mainland China but listed in Hong Kong), and Red Chip shares (firms incorporated outside mainland China and listed in Hong Kong). We find no difference in the three pay-for-performance sensitivity measures between H shares and A shares. The cash pay-for-performance sensitivity and the level of long-term managerial incentives are higher for Red Chip shares than for the other two firm types. However, the sensitivity of CEO turnover to firm performance is insignificant for all three firm types. Our study illustrates the complexity in the influence of mainland China’s versus Hong Kong’s institutional forces on state-controlled Chinese firms listed in Hong Kong.

We examine whether home country investor protection and ownership structure affect cross‐listed firms' compliance with SOX ‐mandated internal control deficiency ( ICD ) disclosures. We develop a proxy for the likelihood of cross‐listed firms' ICD misreporting during the Section 302 reporting regime. For cross‐listed firms domiciled in weak investor protection countries, we have three main findings. First, firms whose managers control their firms and have voting rights in excess of cash flow rights are more likely to misreport ICD than other firms during the Section 302 reporting regime. Second, there is a positive association between the likelihood of ICD misreporting and voluntary deregistration from the SEC prior to the Section 404 effective date. Third, for firms that chose not to deregister, there is a positive association between the likelihood of ICD misreporting and the reporting of previously undisclosed ICD s during the Section 404 reporting regime. We do not find similar evidence for cross‐listed firms domiciled in strong investor protection countries. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that, for cross‐listed firms domiciled in weak investor protection countries, managers who have the ability and incentive to expropriate outside minority shareholders are reluctant to disclose ICD s in order to protect their private control benefits. The results of our study should be of interest to regulators who wish to identify noncompliant firms for closer supervision, investors who wish to identify ex ante red flags for poor financial disclosure quality, and researchers who wish to understand the economic forces governing cross‐listed firms' financial disclosure behavior.

Using a 2004 Chinese securities regulation that requires equity offering proposals to obtain the separate approval of voting minority shareholders, we examine whether giving minority shareholders increased control over corporate decisions helps to reduce value-decreasing corporate decisions for firms domiciled in weak investor protection countries. We find that the regulation deters management from submitting value-decreasing equity offering proposals in firms with higher mutual fund ownership. There is also weak evidence that minority shareholders are more likely to veto value-decreasing equity offering proposals in firms with higher mutual fund ownership in the post-regulation period. Overall, our evidence suggests that in weak investor protection countries, the effect of granting minority shareholders increased control over corporate decisions on the quality of corporate decisions depends on the composition of minority shareholders.

We examine the consequences of shifting the IPO offer pricing power from securities regulators to market participants in a representative weak investor protection country, China. We show IPO offer prices relative to reported earnings are less depressed when determined by market participants than by securities regulators. IPO firms are also less likely to select a low quality auditor or inflate the pre-IPO earnings when IPO offer prices are determined by market participants. However, we find no evidence that IPO offerings are more likely to be overpriced when offer prices are determined by market participants. Furthermore, IPO firms' financial reporting choices made at the time of the IPO have a long lasting impact on the firms' subsequent financial reporting quality. Overall, our results contribute to the ongoing debate on the appropriate roles of securities regulators versus market forces in protecting public investors in markets with weak institutional environments.