Ownership and Control Structures, Corporate Governance and Income Smoothing in Brazil

Abstract

This article examines the association between the ownership and control structure, level of corporate go­vernance and origin of capital (foreign or domestic) of Brazilian companies on their propensity to smooth income. Using a sample of non.nancial .rms with shares traded on the São Paulo Stock Exchange (Bovespa) at the end of 2007, we performed covariance analysis based on data from the preceding ten years, where the dependent variable was the index proposed by Eckel, an empirical proxy for smoothing. The results indicate that the more concentrated the shareholding and control structures of Brazilian .rms are, both according to overall capital and voting capital, the more intensely they tend to smooth earnings to favor the interests of the majority shareholder. The results also show that this effect is less pronounced for .rms with enhanced corporate governance levels and those with foreign capital.