The Controlling Shareholders' Behavior and Financial Reporting Conservatism: Evidence from Construction and Real Estate Listed Companies in China

We investigate the impact of controlling shareholders' behavior on financial report conservatism. Based on a samples of 156 listed companies from construction and real estate industry over the three-year period between 2004 and 2006, We comprehensively use the methods created by Ball and Shivakumar (2005), Khan and Watts (2007) and Gassen et al. (2006) to measure financial report conservatism. The empirical results indicate that the tunneling behavior significantly decreases the financial reporting conservatism, and the propping behavior can enhance the financial reporting conservatism. For state-owned list company, its financial reporting conservatism is lower. The longer the control chain between ultimate shareholder and listed company, the lower the financial reporting conservatism is. The proportion of control right of ultimate shareholders has a significantly negative relation with financial reporting conservatism, but ownership right positively affects the conservatism of financial reports. This paper provides the evidence of the effect of controlling shareholders' behavior on financial reporting conservatism.