Are Private Firms Really More Tax Aggressive than Public Firms?

Author(s):  
Jochen Pierk
Keyword(s):  
2017 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huasheng Gao ◽  
Po-Hsuan Hsu ◽  
Kai Li

We compare innovation strategies of public and private firms based on a large sample over the period 1997–2008. We find that public firms’ patents rely more on existing knowledge, are more exploitative, and are less likely in new technology classes, while private firms’ patents are broader in scope and more exploratory. We investigate whether these strategies are due to differences in firm information environments, CEO risk preferences, firm life cycles, corporate acquisition policies, or investment horizons between these two groups of firms. Our evidence suggests that the shorter investment horizon associated with public equity markets is a key explanatory factor.


2017 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 583-611 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huasheng Gao ◽  
Jarrad Harford ◽  
Kai Li

We compare chief executive officer (CEO) turnover in public and large private firms. Public firms have higher turnover rates and exhibit greater turnover–performance sensitivity (TPS) than private firms. When we control for pre-turnover performance, performance improvements are greater for private firms than for public firms. We investigate whether these differences are due to differences in quality of accounting information, the CEO candidate pool, CEO power, board structure, ownership structure, investor horizon, or certain unobservable differences between public and private firms. One factor contributing to public firms’ higher turnover rates and greater TPS appears to be investor myopia.


2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 117-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kris Hardies ◽  
Marie-Laure Vandenhaute ◽  
Diane Breesch

SYNOPSIS The accuracy of audit reports is often viewed as a signal for audit quality. Prior research shows that in the context of going-concern reporting in audit markets dominated by public firms, some auditors are more accurate than others (e.g., Big N firms). This study is the first large-scale study that investigates going-concern reporting accuracy in an audit market dominated by private firms. The threat of reputation and litigation costs incentivizes auditors to report accurately in markets dominated by public firms, but such incentives are largely absent in markets dominated by private firms. Hence, reporting accuracy in such markets might not vary across auditors. Our main analysis is based on a sample of 1,375 Belgian firms that ceased to exist within one year from the financial statement date. Our results show that the frequency of Type II misclassification does not vary across auditor types (Big 4 versus non-Big 4, audit firm and partner industry specialists versus non-specialists, more experienced versus less experienced, and female versus male auditors). Overall, these results cast doubt on the existence of quality differences among auditors in audit markets dominated by private firms.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 162
Author(s):  
Nor Afifah Shabani ◽  
Saudah Sofian

Smooth earnings are preferred by managers and creditors because they represent a stable business operations as well as low loan default risks and thus creditors reward firms which have smooth earnings with better loan covenant terms and lower interest rates. Nonetheless, recent literature shows that earnings smoothing in public firms is associated with stock price crash risk. Using Altman Z” score to measure firm’s specific bankruptcy risk, this study examines the association between accrual earnings smoothing and bankruptcy risk in liquidating private firms in UK and finds that earnings smoothing significantly negatively affects those firms' bankruptcy risk. The finding implies that financially distressed firms engage with less earnings smoothing, possibly because they do not have the opportunity to engage in accrual earnings smoothing anymore. Nonetheless, further examination shows that these firms engage less with earnings smoothing because they are being monitored by external creditors, indicated by significantly high leverage during the last period before they are being liquidated.


2014 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 393-407 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanfang Zhang ◽  
Weijun Zhong
Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
Borja Amor Tapia ◽  
María Teresa Tascón Fernández

Este trabajo examina las propiedades de los ajustes al devengo, los flujos de caja y los resultados en las empresas europeas no cotizadas. A partir de varias hipótesis sobre la persistencia de losresultados y sus componentes, encontramos que las empresas no cotizadas parecen comportarse de forma diferente a la evidencia encontrada previamente sobre las empresas cotizadas. Lasdiferencias son significativas cuando los ajustes al devengo son extremos, dado que la persistencia del ROA y de los flujos de caja siguen patrones de comportamiento distintos a los encontrados en las empresas estadounidenses cotizadas. Pero contrariamente a nuestrashipótesis, las diferencias en la persistencia no son significativas cuando las empresas no cotizadas publican resultados positivos frente a resultados negativos.<br /><br />This paper examines the properties of accruals, cash flows and earnings in European privately held firms. We start from several hypotheses about the persistence of earnings and its components, finding that private companies seem to behave in a different manner than the publicly traded firms tested in previous literature. As hypothesized, differences are significant when accruals are extreme, though in European private firms, persistence of ROA relative to cash flow follows a different pattern than in US public firms. But contrary to our expectations, differences in persistence are not significant when companies report positive versus negative earnings.


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