The measurement difficulties arising from relationship-based business transactions can result in accounting opacity. We test this hypothesis by exploiting a natural experiment. Using a sample of firms that were networked with 45 high-level Chinese bureaucrats involved in corruption scandals...

Summary Weak institutions impede foreign direction investment (FDI), yet China attracts massive FDI despite global media spotlighting its institutional infirmities. Standard institutional quality variables poorly track rapid transformations, like China' regime shift following Den Xiaoping's 1993...

We explore how property rights protections across different regions in China affect the flow of proprietary information and managers' incentives to disclose details of financial and operating performance. Our focus on research and development spillovers as a proxy for information leakages to...