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This paper aims to document whether firms with audited financial statements pay lower bribes to get contracts than firms without audited financial statements. In other words, this study assesses whether external auditing helps combat corruption.

The World Bank Enterprise Survey data covering the period between 2006 and 2014 is used. The total sample comprised more than 50,000 firms in 126 countries.

This paper finds that firms with audited financial statements pay significantly lower bribes compared to firms with unaudited financial statements. The results are robust across various estimation procedures, various proxies for bribery and various sub-samples. It is also found that the relationship between audited financial statements and bribery is more pronounced in environments where firms face higher pressure to engage in corrupt practices.

The results imply that auditing of financial statements can act as a disciplining device to curb bribery in environments that encourage corruption.

This paper is the first attempt, according to the authors’ knowledge, to examine the relationship between external auditing and corruption using firm-level data that cover 126 countries and is gathered over a 14-year period. Therefore, the results derived from this study are generalizable.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the association between country-level corporate governance and earnings management (EM). It aims to investigate whether the Governance Metrics International (GMI; acquired by Morgan Stanley Capital International in 2014) rating for national corporate governance on a country level is a significant explanatory variable for the country-level EM score or otherwise.

In a sample of 280 country-year observations during the period from 2000 to 2009, the paper measures national corporate governance quality using GMI ratings scores and whether the corporate governance model is Anglo Saxon or otherwise.

The findings of this study show that corporate governance is a significant indicator of lower EM levels in a country.

Corporate governance rating firms play a vital role in public markets. GMI provides country-level corporate governance ratings to assess the quality of corporate governance in several countries. The findings of this study show preliminary evidence that GMI ratings of corporate governance provide good guidance to investors on the quality of corporate governance in a country.

This paper is the first empirical attempt to examine the association between country-level corporate governance, GMI ratings for country-level corporate governance and EM.

This paper aims to discuss and compare the corporate governance codes in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.

The development of corporate governance codes in the GCC is considered using an analytical approach.

Efforts and initiatives are underway in the GCC towards improving the corporate governance environment and coping with international developments. Although most GCC codes are comprehensive compared to those of other Middle East North Africa (MENA) countries, and are similar to international codes, as with almost all countries in the region, there is room for development. Updated codes that address the unique nature of these countries could enhance corporate governance.

This comparison between GCC corporate governance codes provides opportunities to empirically compare the corporate governance status in these countries through indices or checklists based on the current comparison.

The research facilitates future evaluations of corporate governance in Gulf countries. In other words, different stakeholders, including investors and analysts, can utilise this paper during decision-making. Moreover, comparing GCC codes to others in the MENA region would help to assess the GCC’s position in the region regarding these codes, and also alert firms to corporate governance reforms occurring in the region.

The paper analyses the corporate governance codes issued in the GCC, which represents a group of countries with similar characteristics that are thus studied separately from other MENA countries, and compares the corporate governance codes issued for non-financial listed companies.

This paper aims to examine whether female representation on boards is significantly associated with audit fees paid by top Egyptian listed companies.

The authors collect data on audit fees, board of directors' characteristics and financial data for the top 100 companies listed on the Egyptian Exchange (EGX100) for a period of six years. The authors employ an ordinary least squares regression model to capture the relationship between board diversity (i.e. the proportion of female board directors) and the natural logarithm of audit fees while controlling for firm and industry fixed effects as well as other known firm characteristics.

The authors find that audit fees are significantly associated with the proportion of females serving on firms' boards of directors. The findings suggest a complementary relationship between females on boards, as a quality-enhancing board attribute; and audit fees, as a proxy for audit effort and audit quality.

Limitations of this study arise first from the relatively small sample size, and second from the fact that inferences may be specific to the Egyptian context and similar markets.

The results have important implications for Egyptian policy makers and regulators in terms of board composition.

This study provides empirical evidence that further enforces the business case for women's empowerment and the impact of this on the effectiveness of corporate governance.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first archival study to examine the association between female board representation and audit fees in Egypt.