This study examines the impact of family ownership on tax avoidance decisions. This study further investigates the effects of corporate governance quality on the relationship between family ownership and tax avoidance. We construct a sample of non-financial firms listed on the ASE for the period 2015–2021. The results demonstrate that family-owned firms have high levels of tax avoidance. This result supports the private-benefit expropriation hypothesis. Regarding the mediating effect of corporate governance variables, the results suggest that large audit committees and audit committees that meet more frequently curb attempts by family owners to avoid paying tax.

Here, the link between the mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and Real Earnings Management (REM), as well as Accrual Earnings Management (AEM), will be examined for non-financial listed firms in the London Stock Exchange. Robust regression analysis of the mandatory IFRS adoption will be conducted on the panel data, as well as earnings management using three AEM models and three REM models. Mixed results with respect to the qualities of AEM and REM were notably garnered, with mandatory IFRS adoption positively relating to the Roychowdhury of abnormal cash flow and the Roychowdhury of abnormal production. Meanwhile, the Roychowdhury of abnormal discretionary expenses, standard Jones, and Kothari negatively related to mandatory IFRS adoption, whilst modified Jones showed an insignificant relation to mandatory IFRS adoption. Changes in IFRS adoption and guidelines for UK firms may have an impact on AEM and REM, and, as predicted, mandatory IFRS adoption mostly affects the Kothari model followed by the standard Jones model as proxies for accounting earnings quality.

We employ a Boxplot method for detecting and analyzing outlying daily returns of 14 international stock market indices sampled from around the world. The main objective of the paper is to provide an extensive analysis of the main characteristics, features and effects of the detected outlier returns. The results show that from about 4–10% of observations constitute outlying returns with an average of 6%. Conservatively, about 1.4% of return series are extreme outliers. Negative outliers are found more frequent, influential, severe and transmissible. The bulk of detected outliers are found to be in the magnitude of three standard deviations. Also, outliers tend to cluster together, both within individual return series over time and across stock markets. We find a sequential pattern in outlier occurrence within individual return series, and a concurrent pattern across stock markets. Moreover, adjusting for outlying returns leads to a decrease in standard deviation, negative skewness and kurtosis by about 18%, 74% and 69% on average, respectively. We do not find consistent evidence that advanced and well-developed stock markets have less frequent and/or sever outliers. Overall, the results and analysis of the paper provide important considerations about international stock market returns which are relevant to stock investment, portfolio and risk management. The results show that the best (worst) outlying returns which represent about only 1% of the return observations have an enormous effect on the stock return performance and realization.

This study examines the impact of analysts coverage on real earnings management (REM) decisions. The study further investigates the effect of mandatory IFRS adoption on the relationship between analyst coverage and REM. We constructed a sample of UK non-financial listed firms for the period 1997-2021. The results demonstrate that firms followed by a large number of financial analysts record higher levels of earnings management. This result supports the contention that high intensity of analyst coverage imposes extra pressure on firms' managers to meet analysts' earnings per share (EPS) expectations, motivating a higher level of earnings management. Contrary to expectations, the introduction of IFRS fails to strengthen the monitoring role of security analysts on firms' management: rather, managers utilize the inherent flexibility and available discretion in the principles-based IFRS to meet analysts' benchmarks by means of REM activities. These results are robust after controlling endogeneity.

Purpose: This study investigates the nature of the association between profit warnings and stock price informativeness in the context of Jordan as an emerging country. Design/methodology/approach: The authors used a large panel data set that related to stock price synchronicity and profit warnings percentages on the Amman Stock Exchange for the period spanning 2007–2018. Robust regression was used as a parametric test. This enabled us to obtain stronger results that fall in line with our prediction that a profit warning encourages firm investors to collect and process more firm-specific information than common market information. Findings: Our findings show a significant positive effect of profit warnings on the amount of firm-specific information incorporated into stock price, which means that the greater the percentage of profit warnings the more likely that more firm-specific information will be incorporated in stock price synchronicity. In addition, corporate governance characteristics (moderating variables) significantly increase the level of the relationship between profit warnings and stock price synchronicity. Practical implications: Our study results could be useful to investors, senior managers, and regulators in Jordanian firms, particularly in relation to decisions about enhancing the quality of financial statements. In addition, our results provide new evidence about the consequences of earnings announcements for information content and the informativeness of stock prices. Our methodology and evaluation of profit warnings may also demonstrate useful evidence for future researchers on profit warnings and stock price informativeness in developing economies, especially given that such evidence is scarce in developing economies. Originality/value: This research is the first study of its kind on emerging markets, particularly in the Middle East. Moreover, entering the corporate governance variables as moderating variables to the robust regression was found to be more powerful than other regressions.