This paper aims to examine the relation between voluntary disclosure (VD) in audit committee reports and banks’ earnings management. It investigates whether such disclosure reflects an attempt by audit committees to engage in impression management.,The study considers top US bank holding companies from 2006 to 2015. The authors develop a scoring grid to measure VD in audit committee reports. The scoring grid is based on recommendations from 10 industry and governance organizations’ reports that analyzed audit committee disclosures. Multivariate regression analyzes are used in this paper.,Descriptive statistics reveal that the level of VD in audit committee reports did not increase significantly from 2006 to 2015. Multivariate analyzes indicate that whenever banks’ level of earnings management is high, audit committees increase the extent of their VDs in their reports. The authors infer from this finding that audit committees are using VDs as a vehicle for impression management.,This paper sheds light onto the motives behind audit committees’ VDs. The evidence, which is consistent with impression management by audit committees in their report, also provides further background to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s recent initiative to enhance VDs in the audit committee report.

中文翻译：

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审计委员会报告中的自愿披露与银行盈余管理之间的关联

本文旨在研究审计委员会报告中的自愿披露（VD）与银行盈余管理之间的关系。它调查了这种披露是否反映出审计委员会试图进行印象管理的尝试。该研究考虑了2006年至2015年美国顶级银行控股公司。作者建立了一个评分网格来衡量审计委员会报告中的VD。评分网格基于10个行业和治理组织的报告中的建议，这些报告分析了审计委员会的披露。描述性统计数据显示，审计委员会报告中的VD水平从2006年到2015年并没有显着增加。多变量分析表明，只要银行的收益管理水平很高，审核委员会在其报告中增加了VD的范围。作者从这一发现推断出审计委员会正在将VD用作印象管理的工具。本文阐明了审计委员会VD背后的动机。这些证据与审计委员会在其报告中的印象管理相一致，也为证券交易委员会最近在审计委员会报告中增强VD的举措提供了进一步的背景信息。