This study examines the incidence and behaviour of managerial interventions in Australian firms to avoid reporting working capital deficits. We document a significant discontinuity in the distribution of current ratios at 1.0. We also find that the propensity of Australian firms to avoid working...

This study examines the heterogeneity of fiscal year-end choice in Australia. We document substantial differences in the ‘‘popularity'' of balance sheet dates over 1989-2010, and an increasing preference of June year-ends in recent years. 81% of Australian firms choose June to align with the...

Social trust helps to reduce information asymmetry and agency conflicts between insiders and investors, and thus alleviates the pressure on firms to pay cash dividends. Consistent with this view, we find that Chinese firms in low-trust regions make higher dividend payouts than those in...

This study examines peer influence, and its underlying motives, on environmental protection performance. We find consistent evidence of peer effects on environmental protection performance among Chinese firms. When the average environmental protection score of industry peers increases by one...

Fund managers tilt towards stocks from the location of their tertiary education (education province). We find that, compared with their peers, fund managers overweight stocks headquartered in their education provinces by 20.56%. This overweighting differs from the effects of local bias, hometown...

This study investigates the effect of financial technology (FinTech) development on stock price crash risk. We show that the development of FinTech can inhibit management from deliberately hiding bad news and alleviate information asymmetry, thereby reducing stock price crash risk. This effect...

“Say on pay” legislation has been introduced in several countries but Australia's version, namely the “two-strikes” rule, is unique in that it empowers shareholders to vote on a board spill if the compensation report of a public company receives 25% or more dissenting votes for two...