Earnings informativeness and institutional investors on boards

We study the role of directors appointed by banks and those appointed by investment funds in the informativeness of accounting earnings in a low investor protection environment with a high presence of institutional directors. Results suggest that the monitoring role of directors appointed by banks and funds improves investor protection and increases market confidence in accounting information. The paper has interesting academic and policy implications for the debate on the proper degree of institutional involvement in corporate governance, noting that when analyzing the role of institutional investors, researchers must take into account investors' participation in other mechanisms of corporate control such as the board of directors. We contribute to the literature by showing that, in a weak regulatory and low investor protection environment, one of the ways in which institutional investors play a monitoring role is through influencing earnings quality when they are both shareholders and board members. (c) 2017 ASEPUC. Published by Elsevier Espana, S.L.U. This is an open access article under the CC BY NC-ND license.