Anti-takeover provisions and informativeness of accounting earnings

Abstract

The aim of this research is to examine the effect of anti-takeover provisions (ATP's) on the quality of accounting earnings, in a country where, as in most countries in the world, the salient agency problem is expropriation of minority shareholders by controlling owners. Through the development of an anti-takeover index that measures the level of defence contained in Spanish listed firms by-laws, the results reveal a negative incidence of ATP's on earnings quality.