Gender Diversity of Audit Committees, Institutional Environment and Earnings Management through Expense Manipulation: Evidence from Chinese Listed Companies

This paper empirically examines the impact of gender diversity of audit committees and institutional environment on earnings management through expense manipulation (hereinafter EMTEM). The results show that gender diversity of audit committees is negatively related to EMTEM, and the company's institutional environment is negatively associated to EMTEM. Further analysis shows that other things being equal, there is no significant relationship between gender diversity of audit committees and EMTEM if the company is located in areas with better institutional environment.