7. Conclusions
This study documents that the quality of reported accounting information is systematically poorer for firms with
political connections than for firms lacking such connections. This conclusion is based on an analysis of accounting data for
over 4500 firms in 19 countries. Political connections appear to be an important predictor of accounting quality even after
controlling for several commonly used country-level variables such as the overall level of corruption, or shareholder rights
indicators, and for firm-specific factors (ownership structure, size, growth, leverage, market-to-book ratios, or the volatility
of cash flows or sales growth). While connections are associated with poorer accruals quality ex-post, the quality of prior
accruals does not explain a firm’s propensity to establish a connection in a given period. Thus, we rule out that it is simply
the case that firms with poor accruals quality end up establishing political connections.