In this paper, we present evidence that firms with concentrated ownership manage earnings when their large shareholders have an incentive to do so. The large shareholders of Chinese public firms often pledge their shares for loans. Before the split share reform in 2006, loan terms were based on...

This paper aims to aid our understanding of the emergence of accounting as a control instrument in complex proto-industrial settings, through its perceived capacity of mirroring the production process. The paper starts off from an archival document, the 1586 deliberation by the Venetian Senate,...