We propose market timing strategies aiming to exploit the aggregate accruals’ return forecasting power. We examine several performance metrics of the aggregate accruals based market timing strategy such as excess portfolio return, Sharpe ratio, and Jensen’s alpha. We provide robust evidence that, relative to the passive investment strategy of buying and holding the stock market, the market timi...

We test the effect of audit effort on earnings management using a unique database of hours worked by auditors on 9,738 audits in Greece between 1994 and 2002. When audit hours are lower, (1) abnormal accruals are more often positive than negative, (2) positive abnormal accruals are larger, and (3) companies are more likely to manage earnings upwards in order to meet or beat the zero earnings be...

Earnings management is an important part of current accounting studies. Many of those studies concentrate on accruals. This study critically evaluates frequently used accrual models. The Jones model was the first econometric approach to estimating discretionary accruals. Even though it is subject to several limitations, such as model misspecification, omitted-variables, and errors-in-variables ...

In this research, the relationship between accruals quality and bankruptcy of companies has been studied. According to Dechow et al.chr('39')s (1995) model, the quality of accruals was measured, and according to the Shirata model (1998), bankruptcy was examined. Operations were considered as the control variables. The research hypothesis was tested using a multivariate regression model and a co...

We exploit a unique setting of accounting regulation change to examine how accounting information quality affects the well-documented accrual anomaly. We show a significant reduction in the negative return predictability of accruals among UK companies with poorer accounting information quality following the introduction of Financial Reporting Standard No. 3: Reporting Financial Performance (FRS...

While there are many alternative proxies for “earnings quality”, there is little evidence as to what auditors consider to be indicative of high earnings quality. To answer this, we examine the adjustments that auditors require companies to make to earnings during year-end audits. There are three findings. First, audit adjustments serve to increase earnings persistence, smoothness, and accrual q...

PURPOSE Postactivation barriers to oncology clinical trial accruals are well documented; however, potential barriers prior to trial opening are not. We investigate one such barrier: trial development time. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN National Cancer Institute Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program (CTEP)-sponsored trials for all therapeutic, nonpediatric phase I, I/II, II, and III studies activated betwee...

This thesis comprises of three essays. The first essay is titled ‘Do Acquiring Firms Manage Earnings?’ and is co-authored with Professor Anand M. Vijh. The second essay is titled ‘Do Firms Have a Target Leverage? Evidence from Credit Markets’ and is joint work with Professors Anand M. Vijh and Redouane Elkamhi. The third is essay is single authored and titled ‘Bondholder Wealth Effects of Fraud...

Download pose: Postactivation barriers to oncology clinical trial accruals are well documented; however, pol barriers prior to trial opening are not. We investigate one such barrier: trial development time. erimental Design: National Cancer Institute Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program (CTEP)–sponsored for all therapeutic, nonpediatric phase I, I/II, II, and III studies activated between 2000 and...