Does corporate tax aggressiveness explain future stock price crash? Empirical evidence from France

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Taher Hamza ◽  
Elhem ZAATIR

Purpose This study aims to examine the impact of corporate tax aggressiveness on future stock price crash. It also tests the corporate tax aggressiveness prediction power of the stock price crash via a long forecast window (two years). Design/methodology/approach The study sample consisted of 1,169 firm-years observations. The multivariate analysis uses three measures of stock price crash risk, as a dependent variable. The key variable is tax aggressiveness lagged by one period (one year) as all independent variables. As a robustness check, this paper uses alternate measures of earning management and a longer forecast window (two years) to predict stock price crash risk. Findings Tax aggressiveness activity is positively related to a firm-specific future stock price crash. Corporate tax aggressiveness predicts stock price crash risk for a long forecast window (two years). The findings are robust to a number of checks and have several policy implications. Practical implications Investors should be cautious about the different risks of corporate tax aggressiveness: stock price crash risk. The important role of firm disclosure which leads to more relevant stock price informativeness. Adopt accounting conservatism behavior. The market perceives a socially irresponsible behavior and may harm the firm reputation. Social implications Incentives for French regulators to reduce the feeling of injustice by SMEs vis-à-vis large international companies that have the possibility of transferring part of their profits to a country different from that where it should be taxed to reduce their tax bases. Originality/value French companies are among the heavily taxed in Europe which makes France a particularly suitable context for studying tax aggressiveness issues. The first in the French context, that document a significant and positive relation between tax aggressiveness and future crash risk. It focuses on the important role of corporate tax planning as a means of withholding bad news and its consequences in inflating stock prices.

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 397-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andriansyah Andriansyah

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the real effects of primary and secondary equity markets on the post-issue operating performance of initial public offering (IPO) firms. Design/methodology/approach The author utilizes the intended use of proceeds as a proxy variable for the primary market and the investment-to-price sensitivity and the informativeness of stock prices as alternative proxy variables for the secondary market. The compositional data, and non-parametric quantile regressions which are more robust to outliers than standard least square regressions, are employed for Indonesian equity market over the period of 1999-2013. Findings While confirming that firm operating performance can be explained by the firm’s motivation to go public, the author also shows that the operating performance is positively affected by investment-to-price sensitivity and negatively affected by stock price informativeness. The stock prices affect investment decisions by the way that the more liquid a stock is, the more informative its price is, and the more relevant stock prices are in investment decisions. These findings still hold after controlling for ownership structure. Originality/value Departing from the existing literature, the author investigates the role of primary and secondary equity markets for firm performance in an integrated framework because both markets interact closely in reality. The author shows that public listed firms can benefit both from the capital-raising function of the primary market and from the informational role of the stock prices of the secondary market. A measure of stock price informativeness, 1−R2, however, must be understood in the context of thin trading in the sense that the level of liquidity affects the level of stock price informativeness.


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 829-857 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hua Feng ◽  
Ahsan Habib ◽  
Gao liang Tian

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the association between aggressive tax planning and stock price synchronicity. Design/methodology/approach Employing the special institutional background of China, this study constructs tax aggressiveness and stock price synchronicity measures for a large sample of Chinese stocks spanning the period 2003–2015. The authors employ OLS regression as the baseline methodology, and a fixed effect model, the Fama–Macbeth method and GMM as sensitivity checks. Matched samples and difference-in-difference analyses are used to control for endogeneity. Findings The authors find a significant and positive association between aggressive tax planning and stock price synchronicity. Because material information about risky tax transactions tends to be hidden in various tax accruals accounts, aggressive tax strategies make financial statements less transparent, thereby, increasing information asymmetry and decreasing stock price informativeness. The authors also find that the firms engaging in aggressive tax planning exhibit relatively high corporate opacity. In addition, the authors find that improvements in the tax enforcement regime, ownership status and high-quality auditors all constrain the adverse effects of tax aggressiveness. Practical implications This study has important practical implications for China’s regulators, who are striving to reduce the tax burden of enterprises. It also helps investors to consider investment decisions more appropriately from a taxation perspective. Originality/value First, this paper contributes to the stock price efficiency literature by identifying the effect of a hitherto unexamined factor, namely, firm-level aggressive tax planning, on the efficiency of stock prices. Second, this study provides further empirical evidence to support the agency view of tax aggressiveness, and the informational interpretation of stock price synchronicity. Third, this study helps us better understand the effects of firm-level tax policy on firm-specific information capitalization in an environment where overall country-level investor protection is relatively weak.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Agung Nur Probohudono ◽  
Adelia Dyaning Pratiwi ◽  
Mahameru Rosy Rochmatullah

PurposeThis paper explores the influence between intellectual capital (IC) and the risk of stock price crashes by using company performance as an intervening variable.Design/methodology/approachThis study empirically analyzes the impact of the efficiency of IC on stock price crash risk using a sample size of 152 companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) during 2018. To test the research hypotheses, regression analysis and path analysis were applied. In addition, the researchers added exploration to several studies to strengthen the results of this study.FindingsThis study’s findings indicate that investors' optimistic (pessimistic) sentiment regarding stock price volatility has obscured aspects of the financial performance of listed companies. This finding implies that investor sentiment has dominated influence on stock price crash risk so that the aspects of IC are obscured.Originality/valueThis research provides new information that IC disclosure in the stock market needs to include knowledge of the volatility of stock prices in order to reveal stock price crash risk.


2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 424-451 ◽  
Author(s):  
Effiezal Aswadi Abdul Wahab ◽  
Akmalia M. Ariff ◽  
Marziana Madah Marzuki ◽  
Zuraidah Mohd Sanusi

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between political connections and corporate tax aggressiveness in Malaysia. In addition, this paper investigates the relationship between corporate governance variables and corporate tax aggressiveness. Next, the study investigates the mitigating role of corporate governance in the relationship between political connections and corporate tax aggressiveness. Design/methodology/approach The sample of this study is based on 2,538 firm-year observations during the 2000-2009 periods. This study employs a panel least square regression with both period and industry fixed effects. The study retrieved the corporate governance variables from the downloaded annual reports, whilst the remaining data were collected from Compustat Global. Findings This study finds that politically connected firms are more tax aggressive than non-connected firms. Furthermore, the study finds that large board size decreases the likelihood of tax aggressiveness and a non-linear relationship exists between institutional ownership and tax aggressiveness suggesting increase in monitoring as the ownership increases. However, the study finds no evidence to suggest that corporate governance mitigates the influence of political connections in promoting tax aggressiveness behavior. The findings suggest that the impact of political connections could outweigh the benefits of changes in corporate governance in Malaysia. Research limitations/implications The data are not recent, but it reflects a rather longitudinal research period. Originality/value This paper extends the literature of tax research in Malaysia which is in its’ infancy stage. Furthermore, it investigates the role of political connections in tax-planning research.


2018 ◽  
pp. 112-129
Author(s):  
Sana Saleem ◽  
Muhammad Usman ◽  
Muhammad Anwar ul Haq

The objective of the current study is to investigate the impact of business strategies on the future crash risk of stock prices by considering the role of overvalued equity. This relationship is checked by taking non-financial firms from Pakistan Stock Exchange from 2008-2016. To evaluate the business strategy, composite strategy score is used which considers the firm's development and research costs to look for new products, sales ratio to determine the firm’s capacity to manufacture the product efficiently, standard deviation of employees, sales growth, marketing expense to sales ratio to locate the firms’ emphasis on marketing, and intensity of assets expenditures to capture the firms’ emphasis on production. Market to book decomposition method is used to calculate the equity overvaluation whereas the negative conditional skewness is used as a measure of crash risk. Random and fixed effect panel regression models are used to estimate the results. The results of the present study indicate that firms pursuing innovative strategies have a higher probability to face crash price risk. Outcomes of the study also confirm that such strategies also increase the likelihood of equity overvaluation which increases the risk of stock price crash in the future. The results of the current study are helpful for the investors in allocating the assets cautiously among companies with diverse strategies.


2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-331 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grant Richardson ◽  
Grantley Taylor ◽  
Roman Lanis

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the impact of women on the board of directors on corporate tax avoidance in Australia. Design/methodology/approach The authors use multivariate regression analysis to test the association between the presence of female directors on the board and tax aggressiveness. They also test for self-selection bias in the regression model by using the two-stage Heckman procedure. Findings This paper finds that relative to there being one female board member, high (i.e. greater than one member) female presence on the board of directors reduces the likelihood of tax aggressiveness. The results are robust after controlling for self-selection bias and using several alternative measures of tax aggressiveness. Research limitations/implications This study extends the extant literature on corporate governance and tax aggressiveness. This study is subject to several caveats. First, the sample is restricted to publicly listed Australian firms. Second, this study only examines the issue of women on the board of directors and tax aggressiveness in the context of Australia. Practical implications This research is timely, as there has been increased pressure by government bodies in Australia and globally to develop policies to increase female representation on the board of directors. Originality/value This study is the first to provide empirical evidence concerning the association between the presence of women on the board of directors and tax aggressiveness.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Araceli Hernández González

PurposeThis study aims to provide evidence of market reactions to organizations' inclusion of people with disabilities. Cases from financial journals in 1989–2014 were used to analyze the impact of actions taken by organizations to include or discriminate people with disabilities in terms of the companies' stock prices.Design/methodology/approachThis research is conducted as an event study where the disclosure of information on an organization's actions toward people with disabilities is expected to impact the organization's stock price. The window of the event was set as (−1, +1) days. Stock prices were analyzed to detect abnormal returns during this period.FindingsResults support the hypotheses that investors value inclusion and reject discrimination. Furthermore, the impact of negative actions is immediate, whereas the impact of positive actions requires at least an additional day to influence the firm's stock price. Some differences among the categories were found; for instance, employment and customer events were significantly more important to a firm's stock price than philanthropic actions. It was observed that philanthropic events produce negative abnormal returns on average.Originality/valueThe event study methodology provides a different perspective to practices in organizations regarding people with disabilities. Moreover, the findings in this research advance the literature by highlighting that organizations should consider policies and practices that include people with disabilities.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianmai Liu

Purpose As an important part of the disclosure of listed companies' annual reports, MD&A will disclose some "bad news" about the company. The purpose of this paper is to study whether such "bad news" can reduce information asymmetry and alleviate the risk of stock price crash remains to be seen. Design/methodology/approach Based on the sample of A-share listed companies from 2007 to 2016, the authors examine whether the negative information in MD&A could reduce stock price crash risk. Findings It is found that the negative information in MD&A does not reduce future crash, which indicates that the negative information in MD&A does not alleviate the information asymmetry. Further, it is also found this is due to the low readability of negative information which leads to the negative information not successfully released into the market timely. Only highly readable negative information can alleviate information asymmetry and suppress crash risk. In addition, the authors also find in the companies with more investor surveys negative tone is negatively correlated with crash risk, which means that investor surveys could help investors interpret the negative information in MD&A and alleviate stock price crash risk. Practical implications The practical significance of this article: this paper suggests that investors should carefully identify the quality of negative information in MD&A and pay attention to other quality characteristics besides credibility. This paper suggests that the regulator should pay attention not only to whether to disclose and the amount of disclosure but also to the quality of information disclosure, such as readability, so as to restrict management's strategic behavior in information disclosure. Originality/value First, different from previous studies on the impact of information disclosure on crash risk, this paper directly explores the impact of information in MD&A on stock price crash risk from the perspective of negative information disclosure that management most want to hide. It supplements the literature on the impact of information disclosure on stock price crash risk. Second, this paper studies the interaction between information tone and readability and its impact on the risk of stock price crash. Some studies believe that the credibility of negative news is higher and investors' reaction may be stronger. However, this paper finds that the disclosure of negative information may not be absorbed by the market because of the low readability. Third, this paper finds that investor surveys can help information users to interpret negative information and alleviate the risk of stock price crash, which shows that information disclosure of different channels will complement each other and improve information efficiency. Therefore, it advocates different information disclosure channels which has important practical significance for improving market pricing efficiency and reducing investment decision-making risk.


2018 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-72
Author(s):  
Anita Todea

Abstract This paper examines the impact of financial literacy on stock price informativeness in a sample of firms from 20 countries. Using four measures of stock price informativeness, we find a significant relationship between higher financial literacy and higher stock price informativeness. The individual investors’ contribution regarding the incorporation of specific information into stock prices includes private information also and not mere specific information in the general sense. Financial knowledge is the key element that helps individual investors to incorporate specific information into stock prices.


Author(s):  
Ali Haghighi ◽  
Mehdi Safari Gerayli

Purpose Increasing managerial ownership gives rise to the managerial opportunistic behaviors, among which bad news hoarding has attracted a lot of attention. Nevertheless, there always exists a threshold level at which the accumulated bad news releases abruptly, thereby resulting in corporate stock price crash risk. On the above arguments, this study aims to investigate the impact of managerial ownership on stock price crash risk of the firms listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE). Design/methodology/approach Sample includes the 485 firm-year observations from companies listed on the TSE during the years 2012-2016 and the research hypothesis was tested using multivariate regression model based on panel data. Findings The results reveal that managerial ownership increases the corporate stock price crash risk. These findings are robust to an alternative measure of stock price crash risk, individual analysis of the research hypothesis for each year and endogeneity concern. Originality/value The current study is almost the first study, which has been conducted in emerging capital markets, so the findings of the study not only extend the extant theoretical literature concerning the stock price crash risk in developing countries including emerging capital market of Iran but also help policymakers, regulators, investors and users of financial reports to make informed decisions.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document