Marital Status and Earnings Management. Issue 1 (2nd January 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hilary, Gilles; Huang, Sterling; Xu, Yanping
• Is Part Of: European accounting review. Volume 26:Issue 1(2017)
• Page Start: 153
• Page End: 158
• Publication Date: 2017-01-02
• Subjects: Accounting -- Europe -- Periodicals; Accounting -- Periodicals; Comptabilité -- Europe -- Périodiques; Comptabilité -- Pays de l'Union européenne -- Périodiques; 657.094
• DOI: 10.1080/09638180.2016.1266958
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0963-8180

Abstract

Abstract: 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.