Prior literature argues that managers make opportunistic income-decreasing accounting choices to limit the concessions made to trade unions. However, empirical research to date presents mixed evidence, potentially due to the theoretical approach common in prior work that views labor bargaining...

We investigate the role of prudential supervisors' independence in affecting income smoothing behavior in European banks. Powerful national supervisors are predicted to influence the accounting practices of their supervised entities, shaping the properties of the accounting numbers they prepare....