The Association between Related-party Transactions and the Existence of Distortions in Financial Statements and the Financial Reporting Quality: The Role of Restatements and Accrual Estimation Errors

There are two opposing theoretical frameworks concerning related party transactions in prior studies. The first theory, known as efficient contracting, argues that related-party transactions can be used to optimize internal resource allocation and reduce transaction costs; the second theory, known as agency theory, argues that related-party transactions provide opportunities for controlling shareholders, managers, and others related parties to extract resources from minority shareholders. The main goal of this study is to determine which of these theories is compatible with the transactions made with related parties in Iran. For this purpose, the impact of transactions with related parties on the presentation of financial reports containing distortions and its impact on the quality of accruals has been investigated, and in this regard, the number 134 firms listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange during the years 2016 to 2021 has been investigated. To test the hypotheses of this research, pooled and cross-sectional data were used, and the regression analysis results show a positive and significant association between the amount of related party transactions and next year's restatements, which is a measure of distortion in financial statements. Also, there is a negative and significant association between the amounts of related party transactions and accrual quality, which is used as a measure of reporting quality in this research.