Ownership and Control Structure, Corporate Governance and Income Smoothing in Brazil

Abstract

Income smoothing is a longstanding practice under the more general category of earnings management. As the name suggests, it consists of smoothing out the fluctuations of the income series. This article examines the association between the ownership and control structure, level of corporate governance and origin of capital (foreign or domestic) of Brazilian companies on their propensity to smooth income. Using a sample of nonfinancial firms with shares traded on the Sao Paulo Stock Exchange (Bovespa) at the end of 2007, we performed covariance analysis based on data from the preceding ten years, where the dependent variable was the index proposed by Eckel, an empirical proxy for smoothing. The results indicate that the more concentrated the shareholding and control structures of Brazilian firms are, both according to overall capital and voting capital, the more intensely they tend to smooth earnings to favor the interests of the majority shareholder. The results also show that this effect is less pronounced for firms with enhanced corporate governance levels and those with foreign capital.