Earnings Management within Multinational Corporations
研究跨国公司如何通过协调子公司的报告策略来管理合并盈余，发现总部对子公司盈余管理的影响随整合程度和机会增加而增强，并利用跨国制度差异进行监管套利。
ABSTRACT Using a large sample of multinational corporations (MNCs), we examine the location of earnings management within the firm. We posit and find that MNCs manage their consolidated earnings through an orchestrated reporting strategy across subsidiaries over which they exert significant influence. Specifically, we find that headquarters' influence on subsidiary earnings management increases with the degree of subsidiary integration and the extent of earnings management opportunities. Most importantly, we provide evidence that MNCs exploit regulatory arbitrage opportunities arising from cross-country differences in institutional quality. We document that, in response to exogenous improvements in the quality of their home-country institutions, MNCs rebalance their reporting strategies by clustering earnings management in subsidiaries from countries with more lenient regulations. Taken together, our findings yield important insights on the drivers of earnings management location within the firm and highlight the need for better cross-country coordination in regulatory design. JEL Classifications: F23; G15; G34; G38; M41; M48.