Since the Split Share Structure Reform took effect in China in 2005, holders of nontradable shares (controlling shareholders) have had to negotiate with holders of tradable shares (minority shareholders) to gain the liquidity right. In a typical deal reached, the controlling shareholder agrees to pay share compensation to minority shareholders and, in many cases, also pledges to meet a specific firm performance target (performance commitments). Using this reform setting, we examine the impact of performance commitments on earnings management behavior, and find the following results. First, less profitable firms have greater incentives to make performance commitments that help to reduce the share compensation that controlling shareholders have to pay. Second, firms entering into such commitments engage in earnings management to meet the promised performance target when actual performance falls short, and firms facing greater default costs tend to manage earnings more aggressively. Third, depending on the performance metric stipulated in the commitment contract, firms employ varying methods to manage earnings. We also find that firms that rely on earnings management to meet their performance targets display inferior performance in the postcommitment years relative to firms that do not. Overall, our evidence is consistent with performance commitment contracts (with costly defaults) between a firm's controlling and minority shareholders causing incentives for earnings management.

Prior studies show that equity value has convex relations with earnings and book value of equity, respectively, due to growth and adaptation options (Burgstahler and Dichev 1997a; Zhang 2000). However, these studies do not consider the role of institutions in affecting firms' ability to exercise growth and adaptation options. In this study, we investigate whether these convex relations vary with the degree of a country's economic freedom, which may influence the frictions and costs of exercising these options. We develop four hypotheses: In countries with greater economic freedom: (1) a firm's capital investment in response to profitability is greater; (2) the relation between equity value and earnings, given equity book value, is more convex; (3) the relation between equity value and equity book value, given earnings, is more convex; and (4) the relation between stock return and profitability change is more convex. Using the Economic Freedom of the World index from the Fraser Institute, we test our hypotheses with data from 30 countries during the 2000–2010 period. The empirical results are consistent with these hypotheses. The effect of economic freedom that we document is distinct from the effects of GDP level and growth, legal origin, law enforcement, investor protection, and quality of accounting standards. Our results suggest that greater economic freedom enhances equity value through more efficient management of investment options. Data Availability: Data used in this study are available from public sources.