in addition to the above sample, we construct two additional samples to which we apply a more stringent criterion regarding the minimum annual number of payers and non-payers. the first of these additional samples requires at least 25 payers and 25 non-payers in each year while the second requires at least 40 payers and 40 non-payers annually. we require that a country satisfy these minimum numbers for at least five of the sample years for it to be included. the first additional sample consists of 24,233 observations drawn from 13 countries while the second sample contains 21,847 observations drawn from 10 countries. After eliminating observations with missing accounting and financial variables required in our subsequent empirical analysis, these final samples consist of 20,858 and 18,933 firm-year observations, respectively