Marital Status and Earnings Management

作者:Hilary, Gilles; Huang, Sterling; Xu, Yanping*
来源:European Accounting Review, 2017, 26(1): 153-158.
DOI:10.1080/09638180.2016.1266958

摘要

In this note, we examine the effect of CEO marital status on the riskiness of financial reporting. Using multiple proxies, we find that firms headed by a single CEO display a higher degree of earnings management than those headed by a married CEO. The effect is economically significant. Our results persist in an instrumental variable regression, suggesting that our results are not driven by innate heterogeneity in preferences.