Although several studies have examined the economic consequences of large shareholders' tunneling behavior, little attention has been paid to the negative effects of tunneling on firms' extreme events. In this article, we investigate how tunneling behavior affects firm-level stock price crashes. The findings indicate that the probability of stock price crashes is positively associated with the extent of tunneling behavior by large shareholders. The positive relationship is more pronounced after the split of share structure reform and is moderated by the firm's financial conditions. This study contributes to the emerging body of literature focusing on the economic consequences of tunneling and stock price crashes. The conclusions drawn from the study also provide a frame of reference for investor protection and investment portfolios based on large shareholders' tunneling behavior in China.
Whether proportionate consolidation(PC) or the equity method(EM) provides more informative financial statements is a controversial issue. This study uses data from listed companies in Hong Kong to investigate the value relevance of the EM compared with PC during 2005–2008 when the local wordfor-word equivalent HKAS 31 offered the same options. The results of this study provide evidence that PC does not offer higher value relevance than the EM. PC's horizontal aggregation of a portion of the operations, assets and liabilities of the jointly controlled entities with those of the venturer is less informative to investors than the EM's vertical aggregation.