We examine auditor independence in the banking industry by analyzing the relation between fees paid to the auditors and the extent of earnings management through loan loss provisions (LLP). We also examine whether this relation differs across large banks whose managements are required under the...

We examine the relation between auditor reputation and earnings management in banks using a sample of banks from 29 countries. In particular, we examine the implications of two aspects of auditor reputation, auditor type and auditor industry specialization, for earnings management in banks. We...

Using a sample of public and private banks, we study how social capital relates to bank stability. Social capital, which captures the level of cooperative norms in society, is likely to reduce opportunistic behavior (Jha and Chen 2015; Hasan et al. 2016) and, therefore, to act as an informal...

Using an international sample of banks and country-level measures for several dimensions of religion, we study how differences in religiosity across countries affect earnings management. Given that religiosity is a major source of morality and ethical behavior, it may reduce excessive risk...

We investigate the effects of informal institutions (trust, religiosity and the media) on the relationship between accounting-based risk measures and bank distress. We conduct our analysis in two stages. In the first stage, we extend the prior literature by documenting a link between...

We examine the relation between legal, extra-legal and political institutional factors and earnings quality of banks across countries. We predict that earnings quality is higher in countries with legal, extra-legal and political systems that reduce the consumption of private control benefits by...

We study the effects of country-level accounting enforcement on earnings quality of banks and whether bank regulation substitutes or complements the effect of accounting enforcement on bank earnings quality. We also examine whether the influence of accounting enforcement on bank earnings quality...

Using a sample of banks from 36 countries, we document that accounting enforcement is negatively related to bank risk-taking. We also provide evidence that accounting enforcement enhances bank stability during the crisis. In addition, we show that banks assume less risk through more conservative...

Using a sample of U.S. banks and indices for economic policy uncertainty and monetary policy uncertainty developed by Baker et al. (2016), we investigate whether these two sources of policy uncertainty affect bank earnings opacity. When economic and monetary policies are relatively uncertain, it...