IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/abacus/v60y2024i3p446-491.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does Firm‐level Political Uncertainty Affect the Mispricing of Earnings? A Natural Experiment through Government‐to‐business Revolving Door

Author

Listed:
  • Haijie Huang
  • Edward Lee
  • Changjiang Lyu
  • Zhenmei (Judy) Zhu

Abstract

We utilize a unique setting associated with the mandatory closure of the government‐to‐business revolving door to examine whether and how an exogenous rise in firm‐level political uncertainty affects the mispricing of earnings. The tension that underlies our study stems from two opposing effects. To the extent that such uncertainty can trigger opinion divergence (rational attention) among investors, it is expected to delay (accelerate) price discovery and increase (decrease) security mispricing. Our identification strategy draws on the difference‐in‐differences analysis associated with the Chinese regulation in 2013 that mandated the resignation of corporate independent directors with a government background. Consistent with the dominance of the opinion divergence effect, we observe that these involuntary resignations unintentionally increase delays in share price responses following earnings announcements. These findings are more evident among firms that enjoy more benefits from independent directors with a government background. Further analyses confirm that these involuntary resignations trigger more opinion divergence rather than rational attention among investors by showing significant increases in analyst forecast diversity but no changes in analyst coverage following such resignations. We provide novel evidence that market information efficiency could deteriorate as an unintended consequence of the escalation of firm‐level political uncertainty.

Suggested Citation

  • Haijie Huang & Edward Lee & Changjiang Lyu & Zhenmei (Judy) Zhu, 2024. "Does Firm‐level Political Uncertainty Affect the Mispricing of Earnings? A Natural Experiment through Government‐to‐business Revolving Door," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 60(3), pages 446-491, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:abacus:v:60:y:2024:i:3:p:446-491
    DOI: 10.1111/abac.12314
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/abac.12314
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/abac.12314?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:abacus:v:60:y:2024:i:3:p:446-491. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0001-3072 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.