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This article investigates economic determinants that may affect multiple accounting method choices made by Swiss listed companies. It intends to make a contribution to the accounting choice literature for at least four reasons. This is, to our knowledge, the first study to investigate the economic determinants of Swiss accounting method choices. Second, Swiss firms provide an interesting sample for testing accounting method choices because they can choose from a much wider range of accounting methods than their American counterparts. Third, this study examines the balance sheet effect as well as the income statement effect. Lastly, multiple accounting methods are used instead of individual choices. The empirical results exhibit that income-accelerating accounting method choices is positively associated with the recourse to bank and private loans, the extent of assets specificity and the ownership dilution of the firm and negatively with labour force. Additionally, firms that select leverage-ratios decreasing accounting methods, make higher recourse to debt and especially bank loans to finance their activities and exhibit a higher proportion of specific assets than other corporations. Overall, this result suggests that in a Swiss context, managers may select accounting methods to decrease both debt and political costs as well as to increase their own compensation to some extent.

Leaders of loan syndicates often delegate some administrative tasks to banks known as co-agents. One reason is that co-agents are specialized banks that help split the costs of managing the syndicate. Another reason is that co-agents monitor the leader on behalf of syndicate members to mitigate informational asymmetry problems. Large sample tests on the Dealscan database provide support for both arguments. Evidence of repeated contracting between the same banks explains the moderate magnitude of monitoring effects. Copyright 2007, The Eastern Finance Association.