This book deals with the debated relationship between the characteristics of national supervision and manipulative practices in banks' annual reports, with a specific focus on income smoothing. The issue is quite challenging as, since the 2008 financial crisis, governmental bodies and regulators have stressed the crucial role of supervision for bank transparency purposes, but the effect of supervision on accounting manipulation is still discussed. Focusing on European banks, the book investigates whether the characteristics of national supervision affect bank propensity to smooth income, also considering the potential role of bank business models. By exploring a broad range of national supervision's characteristics, the book presents a comprehensive view on the influence of country-level institutional settings on a form of earnings management widely used across the banking industry.

Costanza Di Fabio is a research fellow in Financial Accounting at the Department of Economics and Business Studies of the University of Genoa (Italy), lecturer in Business Administration and Accounting. Her research interests concern international financial accounting - specifically accounting manipulations and the institutional context. She is part of national and European research projects on compliance to national accounting standards, circular economy and environmental accounting.

Her papers on the relationship between different types of monitoring systems and bank accounting behaviour have been published in acknowledged international peer-reviewed journals. Costanza is member of the European Accounting Association and ad-hoc reviewer for national and international academic journals.