El nuevo protagonismo de los agentes locales de intermediación.

There are studies that investigate the impact of institutional settings, some related to corruption, on analysts’ accuracy (Hope 2003; Hope and Kang 2005; Bhat et al. 2006; Chen 2010). Hope (2003) and Hope and Kang (2005) in a cross-country analysis, investigate the relationship between analysts’ accuracy and the degree of information disclosure/enforcement of the accounting standards.40 The authors show that both firm- level disclosures and country-level enforcement can enhance analysts’ accuracy. Their results indicate that a strong legal enforcement forces managers to follow the rules and hence, reduces analysts’ uncertainty.

Bhat et al. (2006) explore the impact of governance transparency on analysts’ forecast accuracy for 21 countries. The authors employ a country-level proxy of governance

40 _{The authors measure the firm-level disclosure using the total disclosure index obtained from the Centre} for International Financial Analysis. Regarding the legal enforcement variable, they construct a composite index based on the following country-level factors: audit fees, insider trading laws, judicial efficiency (La Porta et al. 1997), rule of law (La Porta et al. 1997), and shareholder protection (La Porta et al. 1998).

transparency as developed by Bushman et al. (2004).41 _{Bhat et al. (2006) demonstrate that}

governance transparency is positively related to analysts’ accuracy and that this association is more pronounced in countries with weak institutional settings.42 _{Chen et al.}

(2010) using firm-level data over the period 1997 – 2001 for 17 jurisdictions examine the relationship between ‘political connections’ and analysts’ forecast errors. They find a

positive association between politically connected firms and forecast errors. While the authors consider the level of corruption, their main research question is whether the effect of political connections on analysts is stronger with a higher level of corruption. After accounting for the interaction term between corruption and political connections, they show that the effect of political connections on accuracy can strive in corrupt countries, while they also report a positive relationship between analysts’ forecast errors and corruption.

Another strand of literature explores the relationship between corruption and the quality of financial reporting (Kimbro 2002; Riahi-Belkaoui 2004; Wu 2005; Riahi-Belkaoui and Al Najjar 2006; Malageño et al. 2010). Kimbro (2002) using a sample of 61 countries investigates the association between economic, cultural and institutional/monitoring variables and corruption. The author captures the institutional and monitoring variables with the quality of legal and accounting system.43 The findings suggest that the quality of both legal and accounting system is negatively associated with corruption. Specifically, the quality of financial reporting is higher in countries with a lower level of corruption.

41 _{Bushman et al. (2004) account for corporate reporting, acquisition of private information and information} dissemination. The authors also consider the number of analysts following the firms and media coverage. 42 _{Bhat et al. (2006) capture the strength of institutional setting through the degree of legal enforcement.} 43 _{Kimbro (2002) proxies the quality of legal system using the average of the Rule of Law and the Efficiency} of Judiciary variables obtained from International Country Risk Guide. The quality of accounting standards in each country is measured by the average of the Quality of Financial Accounting Statements variable obtained by CIFAR’s general index and the concentration of accountants per capita.

A higher quality in financial reporting leads to a greater and more accurate information disclosure, and this, in turn, can uncover corrupt practices mitigating corruption.

Wu (2005) examines the link between accounting quality and bribery for Asian firms. The author concludes that a higher accounting quality can mitigate bribery by decreasing the information asymmetry between market participants and imposing a greater risk of punishment in case of discovery. Malageño et al. (2010) using a sample of 57 countries investigate the relationship between accounting/auditing quality and corruption. The authors capture the accounting and auditing quality with the presence of BIG4 firms. Their findings indicate that countries with a greater quality of financial reporting exhibit a lower level of perceived corruption and that corruption can be reduced by enhancing accounting and auditing quality.

Finally, Riahi-Belkaoui (2004) and Riahi-Belkaoui and Al Najjar (2006) examine the determinants of earnings opacity for 34 countries.44 Riahi-Belkaoui (2004) suggests that corruption increases earnings opacity and thus, leads to a decrease in the quality of financial reporting. The main argument according to the author is that corruption fosters a ‘camouflage’ environment facilitating financial misreporting for managers with self- serving interests (Leuz et al. 2001). In a further analysis, Riahi-Belkaoui and Al Najjar (2006) provide evidence for a positive relationship between earnings opacity and corruption/rule of law/economic growth and a negative relationship between earnings opacity and economic freedom/quality of life.

44_{Riahi-Belkaoui (2004) and Riahi-Belkaoui and Al Najjar (2006) use earnings opacity as a proxy for the} quality of financial reporting. The authors employ three measures of earnings opacity as proposed by Bhattacharya et al. (2002): (i) earnings aggressiveness, (ii) loss avoidance and (iii) earnings smoothing.

Financial misreporting can help firms to dodge tax liabilities or to achieve corporate targets such as sales growth and earnings.45 Therefore, firms in corrupt countries might have fewer incentives to improve the quality of their financial reporting. Corruption not only could tolerate the low quality of accounting information, but it can also encourage fraudulent accounting practices by rapacious governmental officials. This study builds on the notion that poor information disclosure can increase the uncertainty in markets, and that financial reports are the main source of information for analysts (Lang and Lundholm 1996; Ashbaugh and Pincus 2001; Byard et al. 2006). Hence, we expect that corruption can affect analysts’ forecasts through its detrimental impact on the quality of financial reporting.

However, in countries with extensive bureaucratic burden, the ‘grease the wheels’ hypothesis might dominate (Leff 1964; Leys 1965; Huntington 1968). According to the

‘grease the wheels’ hypothesis, corruption could be beneficial for the economy mitigating the distortions caused by ill-functioning institutions. Leff (1964), Leys (1965) and Huntington (1968) state that bureaucracy is an obstacle to economic growth and that corruption can add some ‘speed’ or ‘grease’ facilitating transactions. Corruption might also be considered as a source of competitive advantage or as a mechanism reducing transaction costs in over-regulated countries (Cuervo-Cazura 2016). The ‘grease the

wheels’ hypothesis in terms of the content of the current analysis would suggest that corruption might improve analysts’ accuracy. It could be the case that in countries with

45 _{Regarding the earnings targets, there is a strong evidence that market places higher value to firms that} achieve analysts’ earnings forecasts on a continuous basis than to those firms that meet analysts’ expectations occasionally. In addition, De Jong et al. (2014) in an interview based survey of 306 analysts employed by 11 of the world’s largest investment banks conclude that 88.2% of the analysts believe that firms achieving their forecasts built credibility with capital markets and the 87.5% of them sate that meeting earnings forecasts enhances firm’s future growth prospects to investors.

inefficient governance, corruption enhances the information exchange between firms and analysts.46

A positive relationship between accuracy and corruption might also exist due to the

‘income-smoothing’ hypothesis(Chen et al. 2010). In this study, the ‘income-smoothing’ hypothesiswould suggest that analysts’ forecast accuracy should be higher in countries that are more corrupt since higher corruption could help firms smooth their earnings. It could be the case that managers smooth earnings to send signals to markets regarding the future performance of the firms (Sankar and Subramanyam 2001; Tucker and Zarowin 2006; Badertscher et al. 2012). This, in turn, makes earnings more predictable leading to a greater forecast accuracy. Apparently, where corruption is present, managers might have greater incentives to engage in earnings manipulation practices, as they can bribe government officials to reduce monitoring of their activities and thus, there is a lower chance of discovery and punishment.

In this research, we hypothesize that corruption can affect analysts’ forecasts through its detrimental impact on the quality of financial reporting.Therefore, we predict a negative sign for the corruption variable as reported in Table 1. The first hypothesis we would test in this chapter is the following:

Hypothesis 1: Corruption could undermine analysts’ forecast accuracy.