Financial reporting quality and corporate hedging policy: preliminary evidence

This study evaluates whether firms carry out hedging activities on interest rates and foreign exchange to mitigate the effect of financial constraints caused by the informational disadvantage. In this study, the financial reporting quality is measured with conventional approaches following Dechow, S...

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Main Authors: Sipeng Chen, Yuan Huang
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Emerald Publishing 2025-05-01
Series:China Accounting and Finance Review
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/cafr-09-2024-0156/full/html
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author Sipeng Chen
Yuan Huang
author_facet Sipeng Chen
Yuan Huang
author_sort Sipeng Chen
collection DOAJ
description This study evaluates whether firms carry out hedging activities on interest rates and foreign exchange to mitigate the effect of financial constraints caused by the informational disadvantage. In this study, the financial reporting quality is measured with conventional approaches following Dechow, Sloan and Sweeney (1995) and Dechow and Dichev (2002), while the magnitude of hedging activities is measured with textual analysis. In particular, we construct the hedging intensity proxy by counting the relevant keywords on hedging on interest rate derivatives and foreign exchange derivatives (IR/FX). We then compute a standardized ratio of the number of hedging keywords counted relative to its peers in the same industry and use this standardized ratio to proxy for hedging activities taken by the firm. Our baseline analysis will test the relationship between firms’ financial reporting quality and hedging activities. We will further test whether this relationship varies across the subsamples partitioned by the hedging need. Our last analysis will test how the hedging activities moderate the underinvestment in firms with low financial reporting quality. We find that firms with low financial reporting quality have more hedging activities, as measured by our keyword count proxy. Furthermore, we find the low financial reporting quality firms that are more financially constrained, located in competitive industries, and have better corporate governance provisions undertake more hedging activities. Lastly, we find that firms that undertake hedging activities invest more. This study is related to the literature that examines the real effects of financial reporting quality. When most studies on financial reporting quality examine its effects on investment, financing and liquidity management, few studies have investigated corporate hedging policies. Given that risk management through financial hedging has become increasingly important and widely used in many large corporations, it is important to extend the studies on the real effect of financial reporting to the hedging activities. In addition, this study is also related to the finance literature that examines the economic determinants and consequences of firms’ hedging policies.
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spelling doaj-art-9068b9ecf609483299e1529bb4df44312025-08-20T03:08:20ZengEmerald PublishingChina Accounting and Finance Review2307-30552025-05-0127221023610.1108/cafr-09-2024-0156Financial reporting quality and corporate hedging policy: preliminary evidenceSipeng Chen0Yuan Huang1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9721-6881The Hong Kong Polytechnic UniversityThe Hong Kong Polytechnic UniversityThis study evaluates whether firms carry out hedging activities on interest rates and foreign exchange to mitigate the effect of financial constraints caused by the informational disadvantage. In this study, the financial reporting quality is measured with conventional approaches following Dechow, Sloan and Sweeney (1995) and Dechow and Dichev (2002), while the magnitude of hedging activities is measured with textual analysis. In particular, we construct the hedging intensity proxy by counting the relevant keywords on hedging on interest rate derivatives and foreign exchange derivatives (IR/FX). We then compute a standardized ratio of the number of hedging keywords counted relative to its peers in the same industry and use this standardized ratio to proxy for hedging activities taken by the firm. Our baseline analysis will test the relationship between firms’ financial reporting quality and hedging activities. We will further test whether this relationship varies across the subsamples partitioned by the hedging need. Our last analysis will test how the hedging activities moderate the underinvestment in firms with low financial reporting quality. We find that firms with low financial reporting quality have more hedging activities, as measured by our keyword count proxy. Furthermore, we find the low financial reporting quality firms that are more financially constrained, located in competitive industries, and have better corporate governance provisions undertake more hedging activities. Lastly, we find that firms that undertake hedging activities invest more. This study is related to the literature that examines the real effects of financial reporting quality. When most studies on financial reporting quality examine its effects on investment, financing and liquidity management, few studies have investigated corporate hedging policies. Given that risk management through financial hedging has become increasingly important and widely used in many large corporations, it is important to extend the studies on the real effect of financial reporting to the hedging activities. In addition, this study is also related to the finance literature that examines the economic determinants and consequences of firms’ hedging policies.https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/cafr-09-2024-0156/full/htmlfinancial reporting qualityreal effectcorporate hedgingtextual analysis
spellingShingle Sipeng Chen
Yuan Huang
Financial reporting quality and corporate hedging policy: preliminary evidence
China Accounting and Finance Review
financial reporting quality
real effect
corporate hedging
textual analysis
title Financial reporting quality and corporate hedging policy: preliminary evidence
title_full Financial reporting quality and corporate hedging policy: preliminary evidence
title_fullStr Financial reporting quality and corporate hedging policy: preliminary evidence
title_full_unstemmed Financial reporting quality and corporate hedging policy: preliminary evidence
title_short Financial reporting quality and corporate hedging policy: preliminary evidence
title_sort financial reporting quality and corporate hedging policy preliminary evidence
topic financial reporting quality
real effect
corporate hedging
textual analysis
url https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/cafr-09-2024-0156/full/html
work_keys_str_mv AT sipengchen financialreportingqualityandcorporatehedgingpolicypreliminaryevidence
AT yuanhuang financialreportingqualityandcorporatehedgingpolicypreliminaryevidence