Governance Through Taxation: Fiscal Efficiency and Its Disciplinary Effect on Earnings Management

We test whether strengthening a country's capacity to raise public revenue disciplines corporate reporting. Drawing on a sample of 458 non‐financial firms across 28 low‐ and middle‐income economies (2007–2021), we proxy fiscal institution quality with the World Bank's Country Policy and Institutional Assessment revenue mobilization efficiency score, which rewards coherent tax policy and credible tax collection enforcement, serving as a proxy for national fiscal governance quality. Estimating performance‐matched discretionary accruals and controlling for firm fundamentals, IFRS adoption, governance, and macro conditions, we find a strong, negative association between revenue mobilization efficiency and earnings management. The effect survives alternative accrual metrics; lag structures; and instrumental variable, Oster, and propensity score diagnostics, thereby underscoring its robustness. Dominance analysis shows that firm size and adoption of international accounting education standards are the chief firm‐level deterrents, while tax burden, inflation, managerial professionalism, and university–industry collaboration transmit the macro‐level impact. Results imply that incremental upgrades in tax administration, that is, e‐invoicing, risk‐based audits, timely dispute resolution, and governance reforms, curb opportunistic reporting where private monitoring is weak. By shifting the enforcement lens from securities regulation to fiscal capacity, the study introduces a novel, continuous proxy that connects state revenue mobilization to financial statement integrity and offers policy‐makers a double dividend: higher tax receipts and cleaner financial disclosure.