IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/quaeco/v76y2020icp139-156.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Earnings management under different ownership and corporate governance structure: A natural experiment with master limited partnerships

Author

Listed:
  • Chen, Haiwei
  • Jory, Surendranath
  • Ngo, Thanh

Abstract

Master limited partnership (MLP) is a publicly traded partnership run by a general partner (GP) with sole managerial decision-making power, whereas limited partners (LPs) have no role in the operation. As an alternative ownership structure to the traditional corporate ownership, MLPs by law must pay out available cash flow to GPs and LPs. GPs are compensated not by standard stock options but by the distributed cash flow. We find that the MLPs engage in more real activities management than their matching corporations do, but no difference in discretionary accruals management. Since firm characteristic variables do not have a much moderating effect, the difference in governance structures is not the key driver for the behavioral difference, which we attribute to a more quick response by GPs to changes in market conditions. MLPs have higher pressure to generate a consistent stream of earnings and to smooth cash distributions to their unitholders.

Suggested Citation

  • Chen, Haiwei & Jory, Surendranath & Ngo, Thanh, 2020. "Earnings management under different ownership and corporate governance structure: A natural experiment with master limited partnerships," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 139-156.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:quaeco:v:76:y:2020:i:c:p:139-156
    DOI: 10.1016/j.qref.2019.05.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S106297691830317X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.qref.2019.05.005?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bergstresser, Daniel & Philippon, Thomas, 2006. "CEO incentives and earnings management," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 511-529, June.
    2. Robert M. Bowen & Shivaram Rajgopal & Mohan Venkatachalam, 2008. "Accounting Discretion, Corporate Governance, and Firm Performance," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 25(2), pages 351-405, June.
    3. Graham, John R. & Harvey, Campbell R. & Rajgopal, Shiva, 2005. "The economic implications of corporate financial reporting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1-3), pages 3-73, December.
    4. Atanassov, Julian & Mandell, Aaron J., 2018. "Corporate governance and dividend policy: Evidence of tunneling from master limited partnerships," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 106-132.
    5. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    6. Kasanen, Eero & Kinnunen, Juha & Niskanen, Jyrki, 1996. "Dividend-based earnings management: Empirical evidence from Finland," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1-3), pages 283-312, October.
    7. Jensen, Michael C, 1986. "Agency Costs of Free Cash Flow, Corporate Finance, and Takeovers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(2), pages 323-329, May.
    8. Patricia M. Dechow & Richard G. Sloan & Amy P. Sweeney, 1996. "Causes and Consequences of Earnings Manipulation: An Analysis of Firms Subject to Enforcement Actions by the SEC," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 13(1), pages 1-36, March.
    9. M. Andrew Fields & Phyllis Y. Keys, 2003. "The Emergence of Corporate Governance from Wall St. to Main St.: Outside Directors, Board Diversity, Earnings Management, and Managerial Incentives to Bear Risk," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 38(1), pages 1-24, February.
    10. Cristhian Mellado-Cid & Surendranath R. Jory & Thanh N. Ngo, 2018. "Real activities manipulation and firm valuation," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 50(4), pages 1201-1226, May.
    11. Guthrie, Katherine & Sokolowsky, Jan, 2010. "Large shareholders and the pressure to manage earnings," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 302-319, June.
    12. Sun, Jerry & Liu, Guoping, 2016. "Does analyst coverage constrain real earnings management?," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 131-140.
    13. Chung, Richard & Firth, Michael & Kim, Jeong-Bon, 2002. "Institutional monitoring and opportunistic earnings management," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 29-48, January.
    14. An, Zhe & Li, Donghui & Yu, Jin, 2016. "Earnings management, capital structure, and the role of institutional environments," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 131-152.
    15. Roychowdhury, Sugata, 2006. "Earnings management through real activities manipulation," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 335-370, December.
    16. Kim, Incheol & Miller, Steve & Wan, Hong & Wang, Bin, 2016. "Drivers behind the monitoring effectiveness of global institutional investors: Evidence from earnings management," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 24-46.
    17. Teoh, Siew Hong & Welch, Ivo & Wong, T. J., 1998. "Earnings management and the underperformance of seasoned equity offerings," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 63-99, October.
    18. Subramanyam, K. R., 1996. "The pricing of discretionary accruals," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1-3), pages 249-281, October.
    19. In‐Mu Haw & Bingbing Hu & Lee‐Seok Hwang & Woody Wu, 2004. "Ultimate Ownership, Income Management, and Legal and Extra‐Legal Institutions," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(2), pages 423-462, May.
    20. repec:bla:jfinan:v:58:y:2003:i:3:p:1301-1327 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Chen, Haiwei & Ngo, Thanh, 2018. "Master limited partnerships: Is it a smart investment vehicle?," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 11(C), pages 22-36.
    22. Kenneth Small & Seung Kwag & Joanne Li, 2015. "Do shareholder rights influence managerial propensity to engage in earnings management?," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 39(2), pages 308-326, April.
    23. Aono, June Y. & Guan, Liming, 2008. "The impact of Sarbanes-Oxley act on cosmetic earnings management," Research in Accounting Regulation, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 205-215.
    24. Yu, Fang (Frank), 2008. "Analyst coverage and earnings management," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 245-271, May.
    25. Ronald C. Anderson & David M. Reeb, 2003. "Founding‐Family Ownership and Firm Performance: Evidence from the S&P 500," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(3), pages 1301-1328, June.
    26. Gul, Ferdinand A. & Fung, Simon Yu Kit & Jaggi, Bikki, 2009. "Earnings quality: Some evidence on the role of auditor tenure and auditors' industry expertise," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 265-287, June.
    27. Chandler, Alfred D., 1984. "The Emergence of Managerial Capitalism," Business History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 58(4), pages 473-503, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Joern Block & Reza Fathollahi, 2023. "Foundation ownership and firm growth," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 17(8), pages 2633-2654, November.
    2. Paul Olojede & Olayinka Erin, 2021. "Corporate governance mechanisms and creative accounting practices: the role of accounting regulation," International Journal of Disclosure and Governance, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 18(3), pages 207-222, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dechow, Patricia & Ge, Weili & Schrand, Catherine, 2010. "Understanding earnings quality: A review of the proxies, their determinants and their consequences," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 344-401, December.
    2. Alexandre Garel & Jose Martin-Flores & Arthur Petit-Romec & Ayesha Scott, 2021. "Institutional investor distraction and earnings management," Post-Print hal-03096196, HAL.
    3. Jiang, Fuxiu & Ma, Yunbiao & Wang, Xue, 2020. "Multiple blockholders and earnings management," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    4. Attig, Najah & Chen, Ruiyuan & El Ghoul, Sadok & Guedhami, Omrane & Kwok, Chuck & Pittman, Jeffrey, 2020. "Are insiders equal? Evidence from earnings management in closely held East Asian firms," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    5. Ali Meftah Gerged & Khaldoon Albitar & Lara Al‐Haddad, 2023. "Corporate environmental disclosure and earnings management—The moderating role of corporate governance structures," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(3), pages 2789-2810, July.
    6. Garel, Alexandre & Martin-Flores, Jose M. & Petit-Romec, Arthur & Scott, Ayesha, 2021. "Institutional investor distraction and earnings management," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    7. Stockmans, Annelies & Lybaert, Nadine & Voordeckers, Wim, 2013. "The conditional nature of board characteristics in constraining earnings management in private family firms," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 84-92.
    8. Zhang, Yuyang & Uchida, Konari & Dong, Liping, 2020. "External financing and earnings management: Evidence from international data," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    9. Ayers, Benjamin C. & Ramalingegowda, Santhosh & Eric Yeung, P., 2011. "Hometown advantage: The effects of monitoring institution location on financial reporting discretion," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 41-61, June.
    10. Giovanna Gavana & Pietro Gottardo & Anna Maria Moisello, 2019. "What Form of Visibility Affects Earnings Management? Evidence from Italian Family and Non-Family Firms," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-14, March.
    11. Fung, Simon Y.K. & Goodwin, John, 2013. "Short-term debt maturity, monitoring and accruals-based earnings management," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 67-82.
    12. Gounopoulos, Dimitrios & Loukopoulos, Georgios & Loukopoulos, Panagiotis & Zhang, Yu, 2024. "Do CFO career concerns matter? Evidence from IPO financial reporting outcomes," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    13. Sun, Zeyu & Kong, Ningning & Wu, Lei & Bao, Yu, 2024. "Does contingent payment in M&As induce acquirers’ earnings management? Evidence from performance commitment," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    14. Cristhian Mellado-Cid & Surendranath R. Jory & Thanh N. Ngo, 2018. "Real activities manipulation and firm valuation," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 50(4), pages 1201-1226, May.
    15. Bradley, Daniel & Gokkaya, Sinan & Liu, Xi & Xie, Fei, 2017. "Are all analysts created equal? Industry expertise and monitoring effectiveness of financial analysts," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 179-206.
    16. Chanchal Chatterjee, 2020. "Board Quality and Earnings Management: Evidence from India," Global Business Review, International Management Institute, vol. 21(5), pages 1302-1324, October.
    17. Abdullah Alsaadi, 2021. "Can Inclusion in Religious Index Membership Mitigate Earnings Management?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 169(2), pages 333-354, March.
    18. Geoffrey Martin & Joanna Tochman Campbell & Luis Gomez-Mejia, 2016. "Family Control, Socioemotional Wealth and Earnings Management in Publicly Traded Firms," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 133(3), pages 453-469, February.
    19. Abdul Ghafoor & Rozaimah Zainudin & Nurul Shahnaz Mahdzan, 2019. "Factors Eliciting Corporate Fraud in Emerging Markets: Case of Firms Subject to Enforcement Actions in Malaysia," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 160(2), pages 587-608, December.
    20. Charlotte L. Schuster & Alexander T. Nicolai & Jeffrey G. Covin, 2020. "Are Founder-Led Firms Less Susceptible to Managerial Myopia?," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 44(3), pages 391-421, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Master limited partnership; Corporate governance; Earnings management;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General

    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:eee:quaeco:v:76:y:2020:i:c:p:139-156. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620167 .

    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.