Decision Engineering Analysis of Fraud Information Disclosure after China's Share-Splitting Reform

This paper outlines a dynamic game model to analyze the fraud information disclosure by listed companies in China since the share-splitting reform in 2005. By analyzing the conditions of coalition-proof Nash equilibrium between large shareholders and the manager, exogenous variables’ effects on the equilibrium as well as the first-order condition of the maximum utility of the supervisory department, it is concluded that efficient capital markets require a high supervising probability and intensity of penalty to the “insider” and shortened the intervals between supervising conducts as well. Moreover, there exists a unique optimum incentive stock option ratio over which fraud information disclosure becomes more rampant. This results in a higher intensity of penalty to the manager given more stock option incentive and, in contrast, a higher intensity of penalty to large shareholders of a well managed and efficiently capital-structured company once fraud information disclosure is detected. The model's conclusions are consistent with the facts of listed companies in China. Finally, the model makes sharp suggestions for the mechanism design of stock option incentive as well as suggestions for the supervisory department to achieve efficiency of capital markets in China.