Leverage.
Inoue and Thomas (1996) have shown that owner-managers have incentives to liquidate the assets of the company in the form of dividends and leave the debt holders with nothing but the shell of the company. However, a rational market for debt will price the debt accordingly and incorporate debt covenants into loan agreements to protect themselves. For example, debt covenants may restrict the payment of dividends at certain income levels. Prior literature links debt and accounting policy choice because debt covenants are usually based on reported accounting numbers and a violation of the debt covenants imposes costs on the company. Bowen and Shores (1995) explain that managers seeking to reduce debt covenant costs may strive to adopt a set of accounting methods, which enable them to report favourable financial statements in terms of creditworthiness. In addition, managers may try to improve the firm’s financial flexibility in order to prevent them from reporting an “image of financial distress” (Easton et al., 1993). These considerations become more relevant as the company financial debt increases, i.e. a higher total of financial debt over total assets (Cullinan and Knoblett, 1994; Piot, 2001; Zimmerman, 1986). According to the theory of accounting choices, to reduce the debt contracting costs, owner-managers have incentives to offer debt covenants which restrict some of their actions.