RESUMEN Este trabajo tiene como propósito el estudio de uno de los mecanismos de enforcement de las normas de información fi nanciera que supone la línea de defensa externa de las mismas: el control institucional. Los escándalos empresariales acaecidos en los últimos años golpearon seriamente la confi anza de los stakeholders, hechos que unidos a otras circunstancias nuevas del entorno, entre

Sheltered employment centres are social enterprises where at least 70% of their workers have disabilities. They are a way of helping people with disabilities to work in good working conditions and of allowing disadvantaged people to live a full life. However, some people criticise these businesses for being ghettos where public subsidies are used inefficiently. Our paper aims to test if this criticism is valid by analysing whether these companies provide social and economic value to society in return for public funding and are also economically sustainable over time. Using a sample of 997 Spanish sheltered employment centres, a descriptive analysis of the main variables has been carried out. Additionally, the results of a PART algorithm show the relationship between these companies and economic sustainability. Our findings corroborate that these firms are economically sustainable and, at the same time, socially sustainable. These results highlight the great work that such companies perform for society and the country’s economy.

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We use neo-institutional theory to investigate the effect of disclosed audit sanctions on change in audit firm market share. Using hand-collected data from public oversight board sanctions on audit firms in Italy and Spain, we show that disclosed audit sanctions have a negative effect on change in audit firm market share. Moreover, we find that for Big4, severe disclosed audit sanctions have a greater negative effect. We contribute to the literature on public oversight authorities, showing that through disclosing audit sanctions, they help investors to select higher quality auditors, who are able to avoid sanctions and charge a market share premium.

This study aims to understand the importance and scope of the municipal accounting reform developed from 1842 to 1849 by Costa Cabral, Portuguese Minister of the Kingdom (1842-1846, 1849-1851) and Prime Minister (1849-1851), analysing its content, effective application, the impact it had on Portuguese municipal accounting and how it contributed to a greater link between the local government and the central government. To this end, we present a brief analysis of the economic, social and political context of the 1840s and the transformations then operated at the administrative and fiscal level with an impact on municipal accounting; the literature review regarding municipal accounting, especially from the 19th century; the historical sources used and the methodology adopted; the nature of Costa Cabral's 1849 Instructions on municipal accounting, its application and importance, seeking to detect changes and the factors behind them. We conclude that the Portuguese State, by defining the regulation for itself and for the organizations that depended on it, intervened, innovated and disseminated the accounting transformations carried out with the 1849 Instructions, seeking to integrate municipalities into the national accounting system as a whole, in a clear exercise of power, in a political context of legal imposition and lack of revenues, but also within a cultural and technical context of modernization, rationality and efficiency of municipal services. Submitting municipalities to common procedures and practices, as well as to the same obligations, is a remarkable achievement.