Burgstahler and Dichev (1997) and Degeorge et al. (1999) present evidence that U.S.
firms use accounting discretion to avoid reporting small losses. While firms may have
incentives to avoid losses of any magnitude, they have limited reporting discretion and it
becomes increasingly costly to eliminate larger and larger losses. Thus, the incidence of
small profits relative to small losses indicates the extent to which firms use accounting
discretion to avoid reporting losses. A firm-year observation is classified as small profit
(small loss) if positive (negative) after-tax bottom-line net income falls within the range of
one percent of lagged total assets. We calculate the ratio of small profits to small losses at
the industry-country level, for public versus private firms.