Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate, using data on US manufacturing firms, how and when corporate governance affects managers' decisions to use discretionary accruals and thereby artificially influence company financial reports. Design/methodology/approach – Three-stage...

The relationship between personal and firm bankruptcy is intuitively understood but has not been previously studied. When a person files a bankruptcy petition they reduce their spending on goods and services sold by companies. Similarly, when a firm files for bankruptcy some employees lose their...