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Corporate Fraud, Governance and Auditing

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Abstract

We analyze corporate fraud in a model where managers have superior information but, due to private benefits from empire building, are biased against liquidation. This may induce them to misreport information and even bribe auditors when liquidation would be value-increasing. To restrain fraud, shareholders optimally choose auditing quality and the performance sensitivity of managerial pay, taking into account external corporate governance and auditing regulation. For given managerial pay, it is optimal to rely on auditing when external governance is in an intermediate range. When both auditing and managerial incentive pay are used, worse external governance must be balanced by heavier reliance on both of these incentive mechanisms. In designing managerial pay, equity can improve managerial incentives while options worsen them.

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  • Giovanni Immordino & Marco Pagano, 2008. "Corporate Fraud, Governance and Auditing," CSEF Working Papers 203, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy, revised 26 Apr 2012.
    • Handle: RePEc:sef:csefwp:203
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    Cited by:

    1. Maurizio Iacopetta & Raoul Minetti & Pietro F Peretto, 2019. "Financial Markets, Industry Dynamics and Growth," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(621), pages 2192-2215.
    2. Maurizio Iacopetta & Raoul Minetti & Pietro F Peretto, 2019. "Financial Markets, Industry Dynamics and Growth," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(621), pages 2192-2215.
    3. Marco Pagano & Giovanni Immordino, 2007. "Optimal Regulation of Auditing," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 53(3), pages 363-388, September.
    4. Brito, Duarte & Elhauge, Einer & Ribeiro, Ricardo & Vasconcelos, Helder, 2023. "Modelling the objective function of managers in the presence of overlapping shareholding," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    5. Irena Hutton & Danling Jiang & Alok Kumar, 2015. "Political Values, Culture, and Corporate Litigation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(12), pages 2905-2925, December.
    6. Shalini TALWAR & Chitra PUNDIR, 2019. "Corporate Governance: A Look through the Auditing Lens with reference to India," Economics and Applied Informatics, "Dunarea de Jos" University of Galati, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, issue 1, pages 78-84.
    7. Mark A. Chen & Daniel T. Greene & James E. Owers, 2015. "The Costs and Benefits of Clawback Provisions in CEO Compensation," The Review of Corporate Finance Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 4(1), pages 108-154.
    8. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/1ani1qs24g9in97gbhnanm575u is not listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    accounting fraud; auditing; managerial compensation; corporate governance; regulation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • K22 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Business and Securities Law
    • M42 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - Auditing

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