A Study of Impact of Ownership Structure and Disclosure Quality on Information Asymmetry in Iran
Executive Summary Capital market uses financial information with high disclosure quality, and this information can influence capital market decision making. Corporate governance research shows that ownership structure can influence financial reporting quality, and thus play an effective role in capital market decision making. The main purpose of the current study is to examine the impact of ownership structure and disclosure quality on the information asymmetry phenomenon among the listed companies on the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) Ownership structure (including ownership concentration and institutional ownership) and disclosure quality (including reliability and timeliness) are considered as independent variables, and their impact is examined on the dependent variable (information asymmetry) Consistent with extant literature, bid ask spread is used as a proxy variable for information asymmetry. The statistical results, based on data collected from 102 listed companies on the TSE during 2007 2014, revealed positive impact of ownership structure and negative impact of disclosure quality on information asymmetry. These results show that information asymmetry is less in firms that published more reliable and timely information, and is more in firms with more concentrated ownership structure, higher institutional ownership, and lower disclosure quality. In other words, reliability and timeliness of information have a positive role in stock price identification and close up views of the buyer and seller in TSE. Findings of this article can assist accounting researchers and theoreticians in comparing real world facts with hypotheses developed with respect to ownership structure, disclosure quality, and information asymmetry. By increasing transparency in the capital markets, market participants, decision makers, financial analysts, and potential investors are aided in their analysis of plans for investments in financial assets.