The impact of multinationality on the informativeness of earnings and accounting choices

Discusses three theories on the link between multinationality and investment value (internalization, imperfect world capital markets and managerial objectives) and develops hypotheses on its relationship with the informativeness of accounting earnings and levels of discretionary accruals. Tests them on 1994‐1998 data from a sample of US multinationals using regression techniques; and presents the results which suggest that the level of multinationality is positively related to the magnitude of discretionary accruals and to the informativeness of accounting earnings.