Does Hazy Weather Influence Earnings Management of Heavy-Polluting Enterprises? A Chinese Empirical Study from the Perspective of Negative Social Concerns

During the 2014 APEC Conference, there was a long presence of blue sky (APEC Blue) after a long-time occurrence of hazy weather in Beijing, China, which prompted the public’s attention to heavy-polluting enterprises to reach a new peak. Will the public’s negative concern about the incident will affect the operation of heavy-polluting enterprises? In this paper, we analyzed the influence of the haze-related exogenous events before and after the “APEC Blue” on earnings management of heavy-polluting enterprises from a new perspective of negative social attention. We carry out research from three perspectives for further research, which involve the growth in the demand for accounting information disclosure, the increase of consumers’ low-carbon consciousness and differences in the amount of attention on enterprises with different properties and scales. Results indicate that heavy-polluting enterprises have stronger preference for downward earnings management, especially in those enterprises that are large in scale, non-state owned, or have a direct relationship with consumers.