Givoly, Hayn, and Katz (2010) notice that two competing hypotheses can be used for
testing the differences in incentives and, therefore, in the quality of accounting numbers
produced by public and private held companies: the ‘‘demand’’ and ‘‘opportunistic behavior’’ hypothesis. The ‘‘demand’’ argument postulates that earnings of public firms are
of higher quality due to stronger demand by shareholders and creditors for high-quality
reporting. In contrast, the second (opportunistic behavior) posits that public company managers
have a greater incentive to manage earnings in comparison with private ones due to
the continuous pressure by investors to meet certain performance benchmarks or as a result
of having stock-based compensation. This ‘‘opportunistic behavior’’ hypothesis is supported
by the results of Beatty, Ke, and Petroni (2002) and the survey conducted by Penno
and Simon (1986). In accordance with the demand hypothesis, previous research shows
that European private firms engage in more earnings management than public companies
(Ball & Shivakumar, 2005; Burgstahler et al., 2006), as their financial statements are not
widely distributed to the public and are more likely to be influenced by tax objectives (Ball
& Shivakumar, 2005).