IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jmgtgv/v18y2014i3p717-731.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does European Union policy making explain accounting choices? An empirical analysis of the effects of investigations by the Directorate General for Competition on accounting choices

Author

Listed:
  • Roland Königsgruber
  • David Windisch

Abstract

The hypothesis that political costs caused by the regulatory process impact upon accounting has been tested extensively and has found considerable empirical support. However, most studies use data from the United States. Whether the conclusions carry over to different institutional settings is an open question. This study exploits the fact that, in the European Union, there exists a policy area—competition policy—in which the European Commission can act in a manner significantly less constrained than in most other policy areas, imposing substantial fines on companies found to be in infringement of European competition regulations. Companies investigated by the Commission’s Directorate General for Competition have strong incentives to deflect attention and keep a low profile. It is conjectured that such companies will use income-decreasing accruals in order not to appear to be making unjustified profits. The results confirm this conjecture. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Roland Königsgruber & David Windisch, 2014. "Does European Union policy making explain accounting choices? An empirical analysis of the effects of investigations by the Directorate General for Competition on accounting choices," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 18(3), pages 717-731, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jmgtgv:v:18:y:2014:i:3:p:717-731
    DOI: 10.1007/s10997-012-9242-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10997-012-9242-5
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10997-012-9242-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Luca Aguzzoni & Gregor Langus & Massimo Motta, 2013. "The Effect of EU Antitrust Investigations and Fines on a Firm's Valuation," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(2), pages 290-338, June.
    2. David F. Larcker & Scott A. Richardson, 2004. "Fees Paid to Audit Firms, Accrual Choices, and Corporate Governance," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(3), pages 625-658, June.
    3. Barros, Pedro Pita, 2003. "Looking behind the curtain--effects from modernization of European Union competition policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(4), pages 613-624, August.
    4. Paul Hribar & Daniel W. Collins, 2002. "Errors in Estimating Accruals: Implications for Empirical Research," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(1), pages 105-134, March.
    5. John M. Connor, 2004. "Global Antitrust Prosecutions of Modern International Cartels," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 4(3), pages 239-267, September.
    6. Motta, Massimo & Polo, Michele, 2003. "Leniency programs and cartel prosecution," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 347-379, March.
    7. Dechow, Patricia M., 1994. "Accounting earnings and cash flows as measures of firm performance : The role of accounting accruals," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 3-42, July.
    8. Angela Wigger & Andreas Nölke, 2007. "Enhanced Roles of Private Actors in EU Business Regulation and the Erosion of Rhenish Capitalism: the Case of Antitrust Enforcement," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45, pages 487-513, June.
    9. Stephen D. Makar & Pervaiz Alam, 1998. "Earnings Management and Antitrust Investigations: Political Costs Over Business Cycles," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(5‐6), pages 701-720, June.
    10. Stephen D. Makar & Pervaiz Alam, 1998. "Earnings Management and Antitrust Investigations: Political Costs Over Business Cycles," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(5&6), pages 701-720.
    11. Jones, Jj, 1991. "Earnings Management During Import Relief Investigations," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 193-228.
    12. Emmanuel Combe, 2006. "Quelles sanctions contre les cartels ?. Une perspective économique," Revue internationale de droit économique, De Boeck Université, vol. 0(1), pages 11-46.
    13. Morgan, Eleanor J., 2009. "Controlling cartels - Implications of the EU policy reforms," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 1-12, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pasquale Ruggiero & Daniela Sorrentino & Riccardo Mussari, 2022. "Earnings management in state-owned enterprises: bringing publicness back in," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 26(4), pages 1277-1313, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Othman, Hakim Ben & Zeghal, Daniel, 2006. "A study of earnings-management motives in the Anglo-American and Euro-Continental accounting models: The Canadian and French cases," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 41(4), pages 406-435, 012.
    2. Gill-de-Albornoz, Belen & Illueca, Manuel, 2005. "Earnings management under price regulation: Empirical evidence from the Spanish electricity industry," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 279-304, March.
    3. Florian Kiy & Theresa Zick, 2020. "Effects of declining bank health on borrowers’ earnings quality: evidence from the European sovereign debt crisis," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 90(4), pages 615-673, May.
    4. Yves Mard, 2005. "Vers Une Information Comptable Plus Transparente : L'Apport Des Recherches Portant Sur La Gestion Des Résultats Comptables," Post-Print halshs-00581229, HAL.
    5. Dechow, Patricia & Ge, Weili & Schrand, Catherine, 2010. "Understanding earnings quality: A review of the proxies, their determinants and their consequences," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 344-401, December.
    6. Chad R. Larson & Richard Sloan & Jenny Zha Giedt, 2018. "Defining, measuring, and modeling accruals: a guide for researchers," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 827-871, September.
    7. Singh, Abhijeet & Singh, Harjinder & Sultana, Nigar & Evans, John, 2019. "Independent and joint effects of audit partner tenure and non-audit fees on audit quality," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 186-205.
    8. Alzoubi, Ebraheem Saleem Salem, 2018. "Audit quality, debt financing, and earnings management: Evidence from Jordan," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 69-84.
    9. Tsipouridou, Maria & Spathis, Charalambos, 2012. "Earnings management and the role of auditors in an unusual IFRS context: The case of Greece," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 62-78.
    10. Jinhan Pae, 2007. "Unexpected Accruals and Conditional Accounting Conservatism," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(5‐6), pages 681-704, June.
    11. Jawad Mohammad & Attiya Yasmin Javid, 2015. "An Analysis of Accrual Anomaly in Case of Karachi Stock Exchange," PIDE-Working Papers 2015:116, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.
    12. Jung Ho Choi, 2021. "Accrual Accounting and Resource Allocation: A General Equilibrium Analysis," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(4), pages 1179-1219, September.
    13. Maria Carmen Huian & Marilena Mironiuc & Mihaela Chiriac, 2018. "Study on the association between earnings management and value relevance based on the reporting method used for operating cash flows," The Audit Financiar journal, Chamber of Financial Auditors of Romania, vol. 16(149), pages 101-101, February.
    14. Sarowar Hossain & Jenny Jing Wang, 2023. "Abnormal audit fees and audit quality: Australian evidence," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 48(3), pages 596-624, August.
    15. Rajiv D. Banker & Dmitri Byzalov & Shunlan Fang & Byunghoon Jin, 2020. "Operating asymmetries and non-linear spline correction in discretionary accrual models," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 54(3), pages 803-850, April.
    16. Dmitri Byzalov & Sudipta Basu, 2016. "Conditional conservatism and disaggregated bad news indicators in accrual models," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 859-897, September.
    17. Patricia M. Dechow & Amy P. Hutton & Jung Hoon Kim & Richard G. Sloan, 2012. "Detecting Earnings Management: A New Approach," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(2), pages 275-334, May.
    18. Vasilescu, Camelia & Millo, Yuval, 2016. "Do industrial and geographic diversifications have different effects on earnings management? Evidence from UK mergers and acquisitions," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 33-45.
    19. Huang, Wei & Goodell, John W. & Zhang, Hong, 2019. "Pre-merger management in developing markets: The role of earnings glamor," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    20. Richardson, Scott A. & Sloan, Richard G. & Soliman, Mark T. & Tuna, Irem, 2005. "Accrual reliability, earnings persistence and stock prices," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 437-485, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jmgtgv:v:18:y:2014:i:3:p:717-731. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.