We use a unique database on family relationships between CEOs, board members and owners of private Norwegian firms to examine earnings management priorities of private family firms. Consistent with agency theory we find that private family firms generally manage earnings downward compared with...

International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) contain several policy options. This paper examines the choices made in 2008/9 IFRS financial statements by large listed companies from five countries on all the options that are observable. We compare these choices with those that had been made...

This paper proposes an indicator of book-tax difference, based on the sum of the absolute amounts of permanent and timing differences. Using this, we first trace the development of book-tax differences over 18 years in seven major countries. We show that the indicator has grown almost...