محسن فقیه

One of the challenging subjects that has been discussed in various kinds in the financial literature is abnormal returns. In this regard, a significant part of capital market studies is to investigate the behavior of returns and the factors them. In this context, shareholder's protection as a construct multidimensional can be considered in studies related to stock returns and help to improve price informative. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to analyze the effect of shareholder protection on abnormal returns.

In this research, the information related to 166 firms on the Tehran Stock Exchange during the years 2006 to 2022 has been tested using panel data and unbalanced panel methods, and robust tests have been used to strengthen the findings.

The findings show that in firms whose institutional ownership changed, the composite index of shareholder's protection has a negative effect on abnormal returns. However, such a link is not established in all industries, especially political industries. Also, there was a significant difference in the years before and after the structural break.

According to the hypothesis of information content, this result shows that shareholders protection through transactions of knowledgeable investors such as institutional shareholders helps the stock prices to be closer to the Intrinsic value.

Contribution: 

This research can provide a new field of study. Because interdisciplinary concepts such as shareholder's protection, which are subjectivity at micro and macro levels, are important for explaining market phenomena.

A significant part of capital market research is stock price synchronicity and its influencing factors. When considering these factors, financial report readability and CEO media exposure emerge as critical elements in fostering a conducive environment for conveying understandable information to the market. Therefore, this study examines how CEO media exposure influences the relationship between financial report readability and stock price synchronicity. In this context, we analyzed data from 99 firms spanning the years 2014 to 2021. Our findings are rooted in the components of the information environment, encompassing both information supply and demand. To address the endogeneity of financial report readability, we employed the 2SLS method. Findings showed that the financial report readability led to a decrease in stock price synchronicity. This relation was more pronounced in firms whose managers had greater media exposure. Additional tests revealed that, on the information supply side, low institutional ownership, and on the information demand side, companies characterized by higher information asymmetry imply greater growth opportunities and more significant agency problems. Furthermore, the effect of CEO media exposure on the relationship between financial report readability and stock price synchronicity was found to be strengthening. These findings underscore the valuable roles played by financial report readability and CEO media exposure in enhancing information quality and reducing the impact of unsystematic factors on stock price movements.IntroductionOne area that has exacerbated the financial crisis on the capital market is the heightened sensitivity of stock prices to market and industry news relative to firm-specific information. In this regard, the phenomenon of stock price synchronicity has become a challenging keyword in economic, financial and accounting literature, especially in emerging markets.Wang (2014) considered it to have informativeness in the pricing process and compared it to a type of noise affecting both financial and non-financial decisions. Loughran and McDonald (2014) believe that the information environment plays a decisive role in creating and shaping stock price synchronicity. Therefore, this research aims to study the impact of financial reporting readability and CEO media exposure as components of the information environment and information communication tools on stock price synchronicity.Research QuestionsDoes the CEO media exposure influence the relationship between financial reporting readability and stock price synchronicity?Do components of an information environment (including information supply and demand) change the effect of CEO media exposure and financial reporting readability on stock price synchronicity?Literature Review2.1. Financial Report Readability and Stock Price SynchronicityBai et al. (2018) argued that when the cost of collecting and processing information is high, inexperienced investors may gather incomplete firm-specific information from stock price volatility and movements. They tend to rely on market or industry information, resulting in information inefficiency and risk within the market. On the other hand, when the financial reporting readability is high, the cost of processing and gathering information for investors is reduced by facilitating access, and stock returns synchronicity decreases.2.1. CEO Media Exposure, Financial Report Readability, Stock Price SynchronicityLiu and McConnell (2013) have stated that managers are more likely to abandon devaluation-based efforts after media criticism. They have argued that this effect can be attributed to negative media coverage regarding the imputation of shareholder value. Additionally, Cahan et al. (2020) have shown that CEO media exposure leads to an improvement in the quality of financial reporting because it exposes managers to the risk of lawsuits.MethodologyThe necessary data and information were gathered from the annual financial reports of firms listed on the stock exchange between 2014 and 2021, as well as from the Codal and RDIS databases. Additionally, the data related to stock price synchronicity was extracted from the database of the Financial Information Processing Center (Fipiran.com) at Tehran Securities Exchange Technology Management Co. Finally, 99 firms and 792 observations (year-firm) were screened and analyzed.ResultsThe findings showed that financial report readability led to a decrease in stock price synchronicity. This relationship was more pronounced in firms whose managers had greater media exposure. Additional tests revealed that on the information supply side, low institutional ownership, and on the information demand side, companies with higher information asymmetry represent more growth opportunities and greater agency problems. Additionally, the effect of CEO media exposure on the relationship between financial reporting readability and stock price synchronicity was strengthened.DiscussionThe findings showed that the improvement of the readability index causes the weight of firm-specific information on the stock price to exceed that of market and industrial information, leading to a reduction in the phenomenon of stock price synchronicity. Additionally, CEO media exposure has strengthened the relationship between financial report readability and stock price synchronicity. In other words, the readability of financial reporting in firms with higher media coverage has intensified the stock price synchronicity. The interpretation of these results is that managers use media tools to mark the quality of financial reporting and take steps towards reliable and useful information due to the risks that the media may create for them. Therefore, the CEO media exposure can be considered as one of the new tools and mechanisms of information sources in the emerging market of Iran, which has informational content. Robust tests also demonstrated that, in terms of information supply, firms with a low percentage of institutional shareholders, and in terms of information demand, firms with higher growth opportunities and greater agency problems observed a more pronounced effect of CEO media exposure on the relationship between readability and stock price synchronicity. Based on these results, institutional shareholders can be considered as a tool for supplying and transmitting information to the market. Also, the growth opportunities and representation problems can also be counted among the factors that affect the demand for information.ConclusionThese findings reiterate the beneficial role of financial report readability and CEO media exposure as examples of information quality, reducing the influence of unsystematic factors on stock price movements.

Earnings quality based on corporate ownership structure is one of the issues that has received less attention by researchers. However, some ownership structures, such as family ownership, have different quantitative and qualitative characteristics than other firms. One of these features is the agency problem, which is the focus of family-related research. on the other hand, earnings management may also be considered a means of agency problems. Therefore, this study examines the relationship between agency problem and earnings predictive power as one of the aspects of earnings quality with emphasis on the mediating role of earnings management in family firms. Accordingly, 340 observations related to family firms during 2012 to 2021 were analyzed. The results showed that agency problem had a positive and negative effect on earnings management and earnings predictability, respectively. The results also indicate the full mediating effect of earnings management on the relationship between agency problem and earnings predictability in family firms. In other words, the agency problem both directly and indirectly through earnings managerial affects the earning predictability.

Shareholders' protection is an interdisciplinary issue and has become one of the ideals of every legal and economic system, receiving the attention of various regulatory, monitoring, and executive authorities. Considering the separation of ownership and control in companies, shareholder protection seems to be far from such ideals. There are basic concerns and challenges in this regard. One of the controversial issues is developing a composite index that can show the level of shareholder protection. This study aims to formulate a composite index at the level of companies in the emerging market of Iran.

The statistical technique of discriminant analysis was used to measure the weight of the combined index; 166 listed companies were separated into two groups of companies. Among them, 83 companies had the feature of shareholders protection and the rest did not. The composite index was developed accordingly. The results were strengthened based on year and industry separation. The reliability of the proposed composite index was also tested.

The results proved the proposed composite index of shareholder protection to be highly reliable. The index was able to classify Iranian companies into groups of protection and non-protection of shareholders with considerable accuracy. The criteria of related party transactions had the highest weight and the disclosure rating had the lowest weight in the proposed composite index. In addition, supplementary tests for the composite index were conducted based on the year and industry. Also, due to the use of different criteria, the findings proved the proposed composite index to include the results of individual criteria. The results of the covariance test of the proposed composite index with one-dimensional criteria indicated that the changes in the composite index with individual variables were in the same direction, which increased the reliability.

According to the findings, shareholder protection relies on the opportunistic motives of managers and controlling shareholders. The result is consistent with the Agency Theory. Moreover, changing the measure of shareholder’s protection from individual indicators to composite one leads to improve of theoretical foundations by expanding the scope of analysis. Based on theories and evidence, the agency problem makes it difficult to regulate the behavior of managers (or controlling shareholders) in line with the interests of the company. It seems that the agency problem even leads to the expropriation of minority shareholders. Also, based on information asymmetry, managers prefer to limit the provision of information about their operations to shareholders and secure their interests. The proposed index can be useful for policymakers and investors to classify companies into two groups of protected stocks and non-protected ones. It can help them with decision-making procedures, too.

An important part of capital market research is relating stock price and its informative, especially the firm-specific information. Accordingly, many studies have been directed on the concept of stock price synchronicity and the factors affecting it, which represent part of stock price informative. In explaining these factors, the CEO media exposure is one of the factors that affect the stock prices synchronicity. Therefore, and due to the importance of the impact of this factor, which indicates how investors pay attention to the specific information of businesses, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of CEO media coverage on stock price synchronization. In this regard, was collecting data of 146 firm of Tehran Stock Exchange during the years 2011 to 2019 and tested with the simultaneous equations system. Findings based on the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) showed that the CEO media exposure has a negative effect on stock price synchronicity. Also, according to the seemingly unrelated regression (SUR), there is a relationship between CEO media exposure and stock price synchronicity. These findings underscore the information role of CEO media exposure as one of the sources of corporate information transmission to the market.

One of the most tangible signs of information distortion is earnings management. Therefore, the study of the factors affecting it has changed from specific components of the company to general and institutional components. The rule of law, as one of the institutional variables that has an interdisciplinary structure and focuses on political, social and cultural issues, has also been used to explain economic and financial contexts. Therefore, the rule of law is important for the accounting profession, which is closely related to the economic and financial sectors of society. As a result, the aim is to study the relationship between the rule of law and earning management. In this study, data were analyzed 167 companies listed on Tehran Stock Exchange during the years 2006 to 2018 and the hypothesis was tested by separating industrial and political period. The results showed that the rule of law and earning management has a positive and significant relationship.The findings also suggest that the relationship between the rule of law and earning management has been stronger in companies operating in the political industry.While the change in the political period has not affected the relationship between the rule of law and earning management. The findings of this study show that the rule of law does not lead to less earning management.This may be addressed by weak law enforcement in areas such as investor protection, lack of transparency, and increased corruption, which require further studies. Contribution: This research can create a new research platform to use interdisciplinary concepts such as the rule of law in explaining financial and accounting issues.

Subject and Purpose of the Article:

 One of the most important factors in achieving comprehensible information is that one can read it correctly and process it easily while reading. This capability is referred to as readability in the theoretical foundations of the last decade. The readability of financial reports is one of the important factors influencing investors' decisions. On the other hand, conservatism in financial reporting has a historical role in the selection and application of accounting principles and practices and may affect the readability of financial reports. Therefore, this study seeks to study the relationship between conditional and unconditional working environment with financial reporting readability.

The data of 59 companies during the years 2012 to 2019 were tested by combined data analysis method.

The results of the hypothesis testing showed that conditional and unconditional conservatism have a negative and significant  relationship with financial reporting readiness which effect of conditional conservatism has been greater. Conclusion, 

Originality and its Contribution to the Knowledge:

The results of this study double the need to pay attention to the concept of conservatism and the ability to understand financial reports in the public sector.

Audit Committee is one of corporate governance that there are very little evidence about the role and characteristics in evaluating business unit performance. Hence, the purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between audit committee characteristics and performance metrics. Accordingly, information of the 91 companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange during 1391-1393 have crosssectional. The results indicated that there is a significant negative relationship between the independence and expertise of accounting, audit committee members with performance metrics including return on assets, return on equity and Tobin's Q ratio.

Audit committee is one of the corporate governance mechanisms, and there is little evidence in its role and characteristics in risk monitoring and governance in companies. The aim of this study is to examine the impact of audit committee’s characteristics on corporate risk. In this study, the impact of two characteristics of audit committee, consisting of accounting expertise and independence, on the risk of companies was examined, using data from the companies listed in the Tehran Stock Exchange in the years 2013 to 2015, and the pooled data model. The risk was measured by stock returns volatility and generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) model. Results showed that accounting expertise and independence of audit committee have positive impacts on stock returns volatility as corporate risk.

The power of earning predictability as one of the criteria for earning quality evaluation are interested by internal and external users.so the study of corporate governance and earning management policy effects on earning predictability is very important.however this research has three purposes. the first purpose of research is an investigation of earning management on earning predictability.and second purpose is an investigation of the moderating effects of corporate governance on the relationship between earning management and earning predictability .and finally the effect of size on this relationship is investigated in order to test of hypotheses data about 121 listed companies is analyzed on the base of panel data analyses.
our findings show s that earnings management is negatively associated with earnings predictability. We also find that that some of the corporate governance mechanisms modify the negative impact of earnings management and some of these factors lead to its intensification. The results also showed higher Earnings Predictability in small companies compared to the large companies.

From the beginning of the third millennium, the issue of tax avoidance is examined from different aspects, but there is little evidence to the type of action on earning quality including earnings predictability. Accordingly, this research seeks to study the impact of tax avoidance on earnings predictability of listed companies in Tehran Stock Exchange. To test the hypothesis, the panel data from 99 companies during 2005-2013 have been analyzed by Eviews 7. The results showed that tax avoidance reduces earnings predictability. In other words, although tax avoidance has resulted in increased future cash flows but it may be reduced due to the uncertainty in realization of the earning predictability.