The Effect of Corporate Governance on the Relationship between Accounting Quality and Trade Credit: Evidence from Japan

This study investigates the effect of shareholdings on the relationship between accounting quality and trade credit in Japan. It focuses on cross- and stable shareholdings, which are well-known features of Japanese corporate governance, as a private information sharing system. The relationship between cross- and stable shareholdings, accounting quality, and trade credit is tested. The results reveal that trade credit of customers without either cross- or stable shareholdings increases with accounting quality and that such shareholdings weaken the relationship between accounting quality and trade credit. The findings suggest that a close tie to cross- and stable shareholders results in reducing the importance of accounting information through sharing private information.