We investigate the association between errors in management forecasts of subsequent year earnings and current year accruals. In an uncertain operating environment, managers’ assessments of their firms’ business prospects are imperfect. Since managers’ imperfect business assessments influence both accruals generation and earnings projection, we hypothesize that management earnings forecasts exhi...

12 In this paper, we developed and estimated a model of the Thai firm during the crisis. Our results 13 indicate that firms with the highest debt-equity ratios suffered the steepest declines in earnings per 14 share during the crisis from the financial distressed costs. We take this result as strong evidence for 15 the credit channel. Surprisingly, firms with the largest market capitalizations ...

We document the distortionary effects of accounting-based regulation on reported earnings. In India only firms with negative book value of equity (networth) can seek bankruptcy protection. Using a novel dataset of bankrupt firms from India, we show that firms manage earnings downward to seek bankruptcy protection. Strengthening creditor rights reduces downward earnings management among non-grou...

Using an earnings management model in which managers can manipulate the earnings announcement when the firm’s internal control system fails, this paper proposes a measure of earnings quality, based on Ganuza and Penalva’s (2010) notion of integral precision that can be estimated using either the time series of earnings or the relation between earnings and prices. I show that large scale frauds ...

The widespread use of accounting information by investors and financial analysts to help value stocks creates an incentive for managers to manipulate earnings in an attempt to influence short-term stock price performance. This paper examines the role of earnings management in affecting a firm’s cost of capital. Using an agency model with multiple firms whose cash flows are correlated, we demons...

We examine the effect of intangible investment on earnings non-commonality, defined as the extent to which a firm’s earnings performance is determined by firm-specific factors versus marketand industry-wide factors. Such insight is important in determining the appropriate weight to place on each of these factors when forecasting a firm's earnings. We measure earnings non-commonality as the unex...

We investigate whether firms “lean against the wind”, i.e., manage earnings upward to offset aggregate (market wide) undervaluation, by examining how firm-specific measures of earnings management correlate with aggregate market conditions. Leaning against the wind has been proposed by prior research as a behavioral explanation for a negative contemporaneous relation and a positive predictive re...

Economics challenge the specification of discretionary accrual models. Since rent seeking firms pursue differentiated business strategies, firms in the same industry have heterogeneous accrual generating processes. Moreover, Schumpeter’s “creative destruction” forces existing firms to revise their extant business models. We present evidence that such business model shocks are widespread, propag...