• Korean Business Review
• /
• v.18 no.1
• /
• pp.19-41
• /
• 2005

The informativeness of accounting earnings to investors may be used as a measure of the quality of accounting information. The ownership structure is considered to be related to both of two variables, the reliability of earnings reflecting the economic performance of the enterprise and the existence of alternative information sources. Earnings manipulation may mitigate the correlation between accounting earnings and the economic performance and alternative information sources decrease the value of accounting earnings as an information. Thus ownership structure could influence the informativeness of accounting earnings. This paper classifies ownership into three categories, management or inside ownership, institutional investors and large outside blockholders, and diffuse outside ownership and examines theoretically the difference of information effectiveness under each ownership structure. The earnings manipulation hypothesis supports the assertion that the separation of ownership from control motivates earnings manipulation. And differential information hypothesis suggests that more non-accounting information of firms with institutional or concentrated outside ownership is provided. Outside blockholders have alternative information sources that make accounting manipulation ineffective. While most previous studies have examined the effect of ownership on the informativeness of earnings from earnings manipulation hypothesis, this study is motivated by both earnings manipulation hypothesis and differential information hypothesis.