We investigate the interplay between creditor financing and the smoothness of earnings reported by European private firms and document how heterogeneous debt-contracting infrastructures across Europe moderate this relation. Most European private firms are owner-manager run enterprises with...

This study discusses the challenges and opportunities of establishing causal inference in empirical archival financial accounting research. Causal inference requires identification of a theoretically predicted causal mechanism in a research setting optimized to avoid endogenous causes and using...