Abstract
This study is an endeavor to answer the question that does corporate governance, ownership patternand business group affiliation effect value relevance of reported earnings quality in a sample of 300listed Pakistani firms for the period of 2006-2018. The study uses earnings response coefficient andearning predictability as proxy of reported earnings quality. The panel data analysis shows that CEOduality and director ownership have significant inverse effect on the quality of reported earnings i.e.the two do not contribute towards improvement of quality of reported earnings. Whereas boardindependence, independence of audit committee and external audit from big4, institutionalownerships have significant direct effect on the quality of reported earnings. Moreover, it is observedthat these effects are relatively more prominent in the case of group firms. Furthermore, firm size,earning persistence, growth and leverage have positive association with the quality of reportedearnings while beta has significant negative effect on the quality of earnings. Further, it is found thatin times of financial crisis, firms improve its reporting quality to uphold confidence of the investorswhere group firms showed relatively more tending to pursue this practice. This study has severalimplications for shareholders, prospect investors, external auditors and regulators. This is the firststudy of its nature that has investigated the role of group affiliation with reported earning quality
Keywords: Earnings quality, corporate governance, ownership structure, business group affiliation, ERC.