earnings over time. If accounting earnings are artificially smooth, then they fail to depict the true swings in underlying firm performance, thus decreasing the informativeness of reported earnings and, hence, increasing earnings opacity. This is consistent with the view of earnings smoothing taken in Leuz et al. (2002). An alternative view, as expressed in Zarowin (2002), is that earnings smoothing can be used by management as a means to convey information, po-tentially decreasing earnings opacity. While we believe that earnings smoothing at the country level is indicative of accounting that obscures information about economic volatility, whether or not earnings smoothing leads to earnings opacity and adverse capital market consequences is again an empirical issue.