Freedom of the press and corporate misconduct
研究发现，企业在媒体受限国家的销售比例越高，越倾向于进行盈余管理；外国分析师的存在能抑制企业利用媒体限制操纵盈余，且内部人可能从事机会主义内幕交易。
Abstract This study examines how freedom of the press affects corporate misconduct, focusing mainly on earnings management. I find that firms engage more in earnings management when they have a high percentage of sales in countries with restricted media freedom. I find that the influence of foreign partners’ media freedom on earnings management depends on how domestic investors process information about firm export markets and how multinational firms shape their relationship with stakeholders. Additionally, the presence of analysts in foreign countries reduces firms’ incentives to exploit media restriction to manipulate earnings. Finally, I further show that insiders of these firms tend to be involved in opportunistic insider trading, which could indicate corporate misconduct. Overall, these results show that corporate misconduct can be in part explained by a spill‐over effect of the media freedom of export markets.