Audit Committee and Earnings Management of Listed Deposit Money Banks in Nigeria

Abstract

There exists divergence of opinions in the literature on the impact of audit committee on earnings management. The mixed opinions make the direction of the impact ambiguous. This study therefore investigates the impact of audit committee on Earnings Management of listed deposit money banks in Nigeria. Earnings management was measured using Chang, Yat-sen, Shen and Fang (2008) Discretionary Loan Loss Provision Model. The study adopts correlational research design of which secondary data were extracted from the 13 sampled deposit money banks listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange for the period 2008-2017. The study employed Random Effects Model (REM) to analyze the data. The results revealed that audit committee financial expertise and audit committee busyness have negative significant impact on earnings management, audit committee tenure has a negative insignificant impact on earnings management. Audit committee meeting and audit committee share ownership have positive insignificant impact on earnings management. The study concludes that audit committee expertise and busyness improve the quality of financial report of deposit money banks in Nigeria. The study recommends among others that the board should ensure that members with financial expertise are appointed into audit committee as it enhances the earnings management of the banks. The inclusion of more directors with multiple directors on the audit committee as their wealth of experience helps in reducing earnings management thus improving the earnings management of the banks.

Keywords: audit committee, earnings management, audit committee busyness, financial expertise, share ownership

meeting, tenure,

DOI: 10.7176/RJFA/10-16-13

Publication date: August 31^st 2019