Identifying subsidiaries has always been a key issue in preparing consolidated financial statements and is still one of the most difficult accounting issues standard setters have to cope with. Moreover, the current financial crisis and recent accounting scandals have impressively demonstrated...

International and U.S. accounting and auditing standard setters have focused considerable attention and rule making around group audits and in particular the reporting quality of subsidiary entities. We examine how membership in a consolidated group and the related group audit affects the...

Over the last decade, an increasing percentage of the profits reported by U.S. corporations were earned by their foreign subsidiaries and retained outside the United States resulting in the deferral of income taxes. The American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 provided a temporary federal tax...

We exploit a unique setting to examine how managerial and economic connections affect the current and former subsidiaries (“subsidiaries”) of a parent firm undergoing a restatement and bankruptcy. The demise of Enron and the varying nature of ties between Enron and its four publicly traded...

One of the most critical decisions top management in corporate groups has to make is the allocation of resources among competing investment opportunities across the group. Information asymmetry between the parent and subsidiaries, however, creates agency conflicts that complicate such...

We explore a new mechanism of earnings management whereby a parent company shifts income from not-wholly-owned subsidiaries to itself to avoid losses. Consolidated net income attributable to the parent company increases if earnings are shifted from not-wholly-owned subsidiaries to the parent, as...

In a sample of large private Spanish subsidiaries, we find that the magnitude of discretionary accruals is significantly higher when the parent company is foreign than when it is local. Our tests support the thesis of recent research on earnings management strategies within multinational...

We find evidence consistent with Italian non-listed subsidiaries engaging in accrual and real earnings management, so that their listed parents can meet or beat benchmarks. Thus, the parent firm drives the earnings management of the subsidiaries.We identify parents that are more likely to have...

Our study analyzes the relationship between public disclosure of group structures in Exhibit 21 and international tax avoidance of U.S. multinational firms. Several U.S. multinational enterprises have removed a substantial number of foreign subsidiaries from their Exhibit 21 since 2010. Our...