The global business revolution since the 1980s has witnessed an unprecedented degree of industrial consolidation and concentration of business power at a global level. Firms with powerful, globally recognised technologies and/or brands constitute the systems integrators at the apex of extended...

We examine how political corruption affects firms' accounting choices. We hypothesize and find that firms headquartered in corrupt districts manipulate earnings downwards, relative to firms headquartered elsewhere. Our finding is robust to alternative corruption measures, restatement-based...