Providing a Model of the Relationship between the Financial Statements Comparability and Stock Price Crash Risk with Moderating role of the Audit Committee.

Comparability is one of the unique qualities of financial information that enhances its usefulness. The ability to compare financial statements as a specific feature of financial reporting quality can reduce managers' motivation to hide negative news. An effective audit committee, on the other hand, limits the opportunistic and biased behavior of managers and delays the identification of profits. Thus, the existence of an effective audit committee can be considered as an effective mechanism to reduce the Stock price crash risk and affect the relationship between the financial statements comparability and Stock price crash risk. Therefore, based on this reasoning, the present study, using the structural equation modeling approach, examines the relationship between financial statements comparability with Stock price crash risk and the moderating effect of the audit committee on this relationship. The statistical sample of the present study consists of 126 companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange 2012-2018. The findings show that the financial statements comparability reduces Stock price crash risk. In addition, the results show that the audit committee moderates and exacerbates the negative relationship between the financial statements comparability and Stock price crash risk.