Dr Domenico Campa, Professor of Accounting at the International University of Monaco, has been recognised for excellence in his research “Regulatory enforcement and the effectiveness of fraud training: A European investigation into earnings manipulation,” published in “Comptabilité Contrôle Audit” (CCA).
The work investigates whether the presence of fraud training constrains financial statement manipulation and whether the level of regulatory enforcement of countries (measured as both law enforcement and financial reporting practice enforcement) also plays a role.
With evidence from a sample of 500 unique companies listed on the five largest European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK), Dr Campa’s paper argues that data from 2009 to 2014 and multivariate analyses with controls for endogeneity reveals that the implementation of fraud training does reduce earnings manipulation.
In addition, it indicates that fraud training increases its effectiveness in countries with weaker regulatory enforcement, thus compensating for country-level institutional deficiencies. These results highlight that the additional resources invested by companies in ethics training generate benefits in terms of reduced earnings management and encourage managers of firms located in countries with weaker institutions to implement such measures because, in these contexts, their effectiveness is amplified.
Dr Campa completed his PhD at University College of Cork in 2011 and worked as Assistant Professor at Trinity College Dublin. He also served the board of the European Accounting Association as national representative for Ireland from 2013 to 2016. His research interests mainly involve auditing, earnings quality, IFRS adoption, and corporate governance.
Having studied in both Italy and Anglo-Saxon contexts, Dr Campa’s interests include the analysis of impacts of institutional setting on economic variables. His studies have been published in international refereed journals including, among others, Accounting and Business Research, Accounting in Europe, Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Finance, Managerial Auditing Journal, International Review of Financial Analysis and International Review of Law and Economics.