Earnings management in domestic versus multinational firms: discussion of “Where do firms manage earnings?”

Dyreng, Hanlon, and Maydew examine the geographical location of earnings management within US multinational firms. The paper addresses an interesting topic and partially fills a gap in the literature. This discussion presents additional empirical evidence on issues related to the research question raised by Dyreng et al. In particular, the discussion provides answers to the following preliminary questions: do US multinational firms manage earnings differently from domestic firms? If so, to what extent are they different? Surprisingly, these issues have been overlooked by prior studies. Indeed, the results below show that US multinational firms manage earnings less than domestic companies. The discussion also raises a number of additional questions on earnings management in multinational firms and calls for further research on the topic.