An empirical study of voluntary transfer pricing disclosures in China

Wai Yee, Agnes LO, Man Kong, Raymond WONG

Research output: Journal PublicationsJournal Article (refereed)peer-review

33 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper empirically investigates the factors that affect the management's voluntary disclosures of the transfer pricing details of related-party transactions. Using Chinese data from 2004 and 2005, we hypothesize and find that firms that make voluntary disclosures of the pricing methods of related-party transactions are negatively associated with (i) a higher level of earnings management (as captured by abnormal related-party transactions) and (ii) its underlying incentives (as captured by the management's performance-linked bonuses and the firm's incentives to achieve earnings targets); further, they are positively associated with (i) a higher percentage of independent directors and (ii) a higher percentage of government ownership. Overall, our findings suggest that earnings management and its incentives, board composition, and ownership structure significantly influence the voluntary disclosure decisions of managers.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)607-628
Number of pages22
JournalJournal of Accounting and Public Policy
Volume30
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Nov 2011

Bibliographical note

We thank Michael Firth, Simon Fung, and seminar participants at the Joint Symposium of the Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics and Seoul National University for their helpful comments and suggestions. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 20th Asian-Pacific Conference on International Accounting Issues and was awarded The Vernon Zimmerman Best Paper Award. We appreciate the comments received at the conference. We also thank Maggie Lai for her research assistant.

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