This study examines how freedom of the press affects corporate misconduct, focusing mainly on earnings management. I find that firms engage more in earnings management when they have a high percentage of sales in countries with restricted media freedom. I find that the influence of foreign partners’ media freedom on earnings management depends on how domestic investors process information about firm export markets and how multinational firms shape their relationship with stakeholders. Additionally, the presence of analysts in foreign countries reduces firms’ incentives to exploit media restriction to manipulate earnings. Finally, I further show that insiders of these firms tend to be involved in opportunistic insider trading, which could indicate corporate misconduct. Overall, these results show that corporate misconduct can be in part explained by a spill-over effect of the media freedom of export markets.

中文翻译：

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新闻自由和企业不当行为

本研究考察了新闻自由如何影响公司的不当行为，主要关注盈余管理。我发现当公司在媒体自由受限的国家拥有高比例的销售额时，他们会更多地参与盈余管理。我发现外国合作伙伴的媒体自由对盈余管理的影响取决于国内投资者如何处理有关公司出口市场的信息以及跨国公司如何塑造它们与利益相关者的关系。此外，分析师在国外的存在降低了公司利用媒体限制来操纵收益的动机。最后，我进一步表明，这些公司的内部人员倾向于参与机会主义的内幕交易，这可能表明公司存在不当行为。全面的，