Have IFRS Affected Earnings Management in the European Union?

There has recently been considerable discussion of those features of IFRS that are likely to help improve financial reporting in the European Union. However, certain issues may also have a negative impact on the quality of information. This paper focuses on the effect of IFRS on earnings management. Its main purpose is to examine whether the adoption of IFRS in the European Union has increased or decreased the scope for discretionary accounting practices by comparing discretionary accruals in the periods preceding and immediately after the regulatory change. Another objective is to determine which firms' features and country factors may explain the accounting discretion observed before and after IFRS. We consider a sample of non-financial firms listed on 11 EU stock markets. The results obtained show that earnings management has intensified since the adoption of IFRS in Europe, as discretionary accruals have increased in the period following implementation. The variables explaining accounting discretion are the same before and after IFRS (business size, leverage, investor protection and legal enforcement). These results suggest that variations in earnings management might be due to some room for manipulation under international standards when compared with local standards.     

Executive compensation and earnings management: Empirical evidence from Japan

This study investigates the relation between discretionary accounting choices and executive compensation in Japanese firms. The results show that the use of discretionary accruals increases executive compensation. The analyses also show that firm managers receiving no bonus adopt income-decreasing accruals and extraordinary items. In particular, evidence shows that negative extraordinary items are strongly associated with no bonus payment. Finally, the research indicates that the association between discretionary accruals and executive bonus varies depending upon the circumstances of the firm. This study contributes to the literature on earnings management from an international comparative perspective since most previous studies on earnings management and executive compensation have focused on U.S. firms.     

Cash from operations and earnings management in Korea

Our study investigates the relationship between the operating performances of Korean industrial firms and the behavior of discretionary accruals during the period 1994-1997. We hypothesize that the degree of earnings management will depend on the firm operating performances. We construct 10 “cash from operations (CFO)” portfolios to test if there are systematic differences in discretionary accruals across portfolios.Four test methods (a mean accrual test, a correlation test, a regression analysis, and a sign-change test) are used to investigate if operating performances affect discretionary accruals differently. We compare three accrual estimation approaches (two discretionary accruals and total accruals) in testing the earnings management hypotheses.The results support the hypothesis that Korean industrial firms manage earnings. When operating performance is poor, the firms tend to choose income-increasing strategies. In addition, when operating performance is extremely poor, some firms tend to take a big bath, while some of the exceptionally well-performing firms tend to select income-decreasing strategies.     

Earnings management in the pre-IPO process: Biases and predictors

We analyze a sample of 3,293 IPOs from 29 countries to investigate the firm, industry, and country characteristics related to earnings management during the IPO process. We find that IPO firms tend to have significantly positive discretionary accruals (DCA) both prior to and after the IPO, suggesting that IPO firms tend to engage in pre-IPO earnings management. However, we also find that using a proxy for earnings management in the IPO year may lead to biased conclusions concerning pre-IPO earnings management. Firms that are more likely to need access to capital markets in the future (firms with high leverage, and firms backed by a venture capitalist) are less likely to engage in pre-IPO earnings management. Firms operating in countries with a superior rule of law are also less likely to engage in earnings management. Lastly, we find that firms may engage in pre-IPO earnings management in part to avoid returning to the capital markets to raise more funds (capital market staging). This result is robust to possible endogeneity bias stemming from management self-selection.     

The Use of Unsigned Earnings Quality Measures in Tests of Earnings Management

This paper examines the implications of using the absolute value of discretionary accruals when testing for earnings management. First, we analytically develop the mean and variance of the distribution of absolute discretionary accruals, and show that the expected value is an increasing function of the variance in the underlying error term from the first‐stage discretionary accrual estimation model. Second, we highlight several firm characteristics that are related to the error variance in discretionary accrual estimation models. Using simulations, we show that correlation between the earnings management partitioning variable and these firm characteristics leads to an overrejection of the null hypothesis of no earnings management. Third, we provide research design suggestions to help researchers mitigate the potential bias arising from the use of unsigned measures of earnings management. Using these suggestions, we replicate a recent study, and demonstrate that the inferences change after controlling for operating volatility.     

Hedging the value of waiting

We analyze the optimal hedging policy of a firm that has flexibility in the timing of investment. Conventional wisdom suggests that hedging adds value by alleviating the under-investment problem associated with capital market frictions. However, our model shows that hedging also adds value by allowing investment to be delayed in circumstances where the same frictions would cause it to commence prematurely. Thus, hedging can have the paradoxical effect of reducing investment. We also show that greater timing flexibility increases the optimal quantity of hedging, but has a non-monotonic effect on the additional value created by hedging. These results may help explain the empirical findings that investment rates do not differ between hedgers and non-hedgers, and that hedging propensities do not depend on standard measures of growth opportunities.     

Insider-trading,discretionary accruals and information asymmetry

Using US data for the period from 2004 to 2012 and alternative discretionary accruals measures, we examine whether insiders manipulate earnings in an asymmetric information environment to profit from their informed trades, and whether the intervening information environment influences the relationship between earnings management and insider trading. We show that insider trading dominated by sell trades has a positive association with discretionary accruals. The incremental effect of information asymmetry as well as the interaction with insider trading is also prevalent in this relation, confirming the moderating effect of asymmetric information. Further, we show that the active involvement of some key insiders in high discretionary accruals is for personal benefit more in growth firms than in value firms. Our results also suggest that earnings management allows for insiders’ opportunistic, rather than routine, buy and sell trades. Our findings highlight that regulators should oversee and scrutinise both insider trading and earnings management to mitigate the risk of the opportunistic behaviour of insiders to avoid future corporate scandals.     

Predicting Stock Market Returns with Aggregate Discretionary Accruals

We find that the positive relation between aggregate accruals and one‐year‐ahead market returns documented in Hirshleifer, Hou, and Teoh [2009] is driven by discretionary accruals but not normal accruals. The return forecasting power of aggregate discretionary accruals is robust to choices of sample periods, return measurements, estimation methods, business condition and risk premium proxies, and accrual models used to isolate discretionary accruals. Our extensive analysis shows that aggregate discretionary accruals, in sharp contrast to aggregate normal accruals, contain little information about overall business conditions or aggregate cash flows and display little co‐movement with ICAPM‐motivated risk premium proxies. Our findings imply that aggregate discretionary accruals likely reflect aggregate fluctuations in earnings management, thereby favoring the behavioral explanation that managers time aggregate equity markets to report earnings.     

Earnings Management Surrounding CEO Turnover: Evidence from Korea

This article examines the empirical relation between chief executive officer (CEO) turnover and earnings management in Korea using a sample of 403 CEO turnovers and 806 non‐turnover control firms during the period 2001–2010. We classify CEO turnovers into four types depending on whether the departure of the outgoing CEO is peaceful or forced and whether the incoming CEO is promoted from within or recruited from outside the firm. We measure earnings management by both discretionary accruals and real activities management. We also control for the endogeneity of CEO turnover and a potential selection bias using 2SLS and Heckman's two‐stage approach. After controlling for corporate financial performance and governance structure, we find upward earnings management by the departing CEO only when the departure is forced and the new CEO is an insider. In this case, the new CEO also engages in downward earnings management using both discretionary accruals and real activities management. We also find some evidence that the new CEO recruited from outside the firm manages discretionary accruals upward following the peaceful departure of his predecessor. In all other types of CEO turnover, we do not find evidence of significant earnings management by either CEO.     

Impact of IFRS in New Zealand on Accounts and Earnings Quality

The impact of the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) on the accounts and the quality of earnings of New Zealand firms is examined. Our analysis of IFRS adjustments for the last period under pre‐IFRS NZ Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) reveals that total assets, total liabilities and net profit were significantly higher under IFRS than under pre‐IFRS GAAP. Profit and equity under IFRS were increased by adjustments for goodwill and other intangibles and investment property, and decreased by adjustments for employee benefits and share‐based payments. Using data for 2002–2009, we find that absolute discretionary accruals were significantly higher under IFRS than under pre‐IFRS NZ GAAP, suggesting lower earnings quality under IFRS than under pre‐IFRS NZ GAAP. However, we find no significant differences in signed discretionary accruals and the ability of earnings to predict one‐year‐ahead cash flows between pre‐IFRS NZ GAAP and IFRS. These results are consistent across alternative measures of accruals quality, sample selection and whether firms elected to adopt IFRS in 2005 rather than comply with them in 2007.     

Accruals Management, Investor Sophistication, and Equity Valuation: Evidence from 10–Q Filings

The release of the full set of financial statements in Form 10–Q provides investors with the data necessary to estimate the discretionary portion of earnings, thereby allowing them to better assess the integrity of reported quarterly earnings. We thus expect a negative association between unexpected discretionary accruals estimated using 10–Q disclosures and stock returns around 10–Q filing dates. Consistent with our expectations, we document a negative association between unexpected discretionary accruals and cumulative abnormal returns over a short window around the 10–Q filing date. Furthermore, this association varies systematically with investor sophistication. Finally, results from portfolio tests indicate that this association is economically as well as statistically significant. One interpretation of our findings is that accruals management has substantial valuation consequences, which are quickly impounded into stock prices.     

CAP Forum on Enron: Former Audit Firm Personnel as CFOs: Effect on Earnings Management*

Corporate hiring of former audit personnel to fill key financial positions is a practice that has attracted attention from the media, the accounting profession, and regulators. The concern is that the former external auditor who now holds a key position with the client may be able to circumvent the audit or exert pressure on the audit team and adversely influence audit quality. We compare a sample of 172 test companies that appointed to the position of chief financial officer (CFO) personnel who are former employees of the companies' auditors, with a control sample of companies that appointed new CFOs who were not affiliated with their auditors. We investigate whether the level of discretionary accruals is greater for the test sample compared with the control sample during the two years following appointment of the CFO. Both univariate and multivariate results for signed discretionary accruals suggest some support for the hypothesis that firms with affiliated CFOs are associated with greater earnings management than firms with unaffiliated CFOs. Furthermore, the results for signed discretionary accruals suggest that the association is stronger for nonpartners who moved from the audit firm to the client with little or no time gap. On average, the results for absolute discretionary accruals do not suggest differences in earnings management between affiliated and unaffiliated CFOs. However, they do indicate some earnings management relative to unaffiliated CFOs by CFOs who had little or no time gap between leaving the audit firm and joining the client firm, although at a weaker level of significance.     

Asset write-offs discretion and accruals management in Taiwan: the role of corporate governance

Using a sample of Taiwan’s public firms, this paper examines whether managers use discretionary write-offs and abnormal accruals jointly to reach earnings targets and how corporate governance mechanisms react to such opportunistic behavior. We develop a set of simultaneous equations that capture executives’ incentives to manage earnings through write-offs and accrual management. These incentives include the existence and tightness of accounting-based covenants, “big bath,” income smoothing, and changes in senior management. The empirical results show that firms with larger discretionary write-offs also have lower discretionary accruals. In addition, we find that these earnings management tools are endogenous, suggesting that discretionary write-offs and discretionary accruals are partial complements for earnings manipulation and that their magnitudes are determined jointly. These findings contrast sharply with the tenor of discussion in the U.S. literature concerning the potential for using asset write-offs and discretionary accruals to manipulate earnings, which documents that managers use their discretion over accruals to signal economic realities rather than to obfuscate. Moreover, the results reveal that the empirical association between discretionary write-offs and abnormal accruals is more pronounced in weakly governed firms, suggesting that a strong governance setting is likely to constrain management’s discretionary behavior. The above implications are robust to a number of alternative specifications and variables definitions.     

Earnings management and abnormal returns: Evidence from the 1970–1972 Price Control Regulations

We examine the association between abnormal returns and earnings management in the context of price control regulations to test the construct validity of the earnings management model. Abnormal returns are used as a market–based measure, and discretionary accruals are employed to measure earnings management. Our results support the hypotheses that (1) price control regulations affect firms' security prices negatively, (2) firms make income–decreasing discretionary accruals to increase the likelihood of price increase approval, and (3) firms that are affected most negatively by the regulations manage earnings more aggressively. We conclude that the earnings management model we use in this study is capable of predicting opportunistic discretionary accruals.     

Highly Valued Equity and Discretionary Accruals

Abstract:  Overvalued equity provides a strong incentive for managers to report earnings that do not disappoint the market (  Jensen, 2005 ). We find that this can be extended to highly valued equity more generally. In the year following the classification as highly valued and compared to firms with less extreme valuations, highly valued firms have significantly higher discretionary accruals and exhibit a more pronounced positive association between discretionary accruals and proxies for the likelihood of failing to meet earnings targets. These findings are consistent with the use of discretionary accruals to manage earnings in support of extreme valuation. Because highly valued equity will likely result in CEOs with valuable stock and stock option portfolios, we test whether and show that the overvalued equity incentive is incremental to a CEO's equity portfolio incentive. One implication is that directors and audit committees should be especially on guard for possible earnings management when a firm has extremely high valuation multiples and when the CEO has a lot of equity at risk.     

Ownership structure and the pricing of discretionary accruals in Japan

This paper examines the valuation effect of discretionary accruals for Japanese firms, taking into account the book value of equity. Consistent with US evidence, the Japanese market prices discretionary accruals, indicating that discretionary accruals enhance the value relevance of reported earnings. This value relevance is lower for cross-held firms, consistent with the view that cross-business shareholding aggravates tunneling or managerial opportunism through discretionary accounting choices. On the other hand, foreign shareholding and bond financing provide effective monitoring on managerial discretion of profit firms to enhance the valuation of discretionary accruals.     

Terrorist attacks and company financial numbers: Evidence on earnings management and value relevance from Madrid, London and Istanbul

This study focuses on three major terrorist attacks that took place in Madrid on 11 March 2004, in London on 7 July 2005, and in Istanbul on 27 July 2008. It examines firms that belong to banking, insurance and leisure sectors and assesses the earnings management potential and the value relevance of reported financial numbers before and after the terrorist attack. The study shows that, in general, a terrorist attack is likely to increase the scope for earnings management and reduce the value relevance of reported financial numbers. The terrorist attacks in Madrid and Istanbul have led to higher earnings management potential and less value relevant financial numbers. In contrast, the UK terrorist attack has not increased the potential for earnings management, while the value relevance of reported financial numbers has increased. The findings indicate that the insurance industry and the leisure industry are more inclined to use earnings management after the attacks. Comparing the common-law and code-law countries after the attack, the study shows that the UK displays lower discretionary accruals and higher value relevance of reported financial numbers. It is noteworthy that, after the attacks, the UK exhibits higher profitability, leverage and liquidity compared to Spain and Turkey.     

Forecasts in IPO Prospectuses: The Effect of Corporate Governance on Earnings Management

Prior research suggests that managers may use earnings management to meet voluntary earnings forecasts. We document the extent of earnings management undertaken within Canadian Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) and study the extent to which companies with better corporate governance systems are less likely to use earnings management to achieve their earnings forecasts. In addition, we test other factors that differentiate forecasting from non‐forecasting firms, and assess the impact of forecasting and corporate governance on future cash flow prediction. We find that firms with better corporate governance are less likely to include a voluntary earnings forecast in their IPO prospectus. In addition, we find that while IPO firms use accruals management to meet forecasts; the informativeness of the discretionary accruals depends on whether or not the firm would have missed its forecast without the use of discretionary accruals.     

Accrual usage to manage earnings toward financial analysts' forecasts

This study examines whether management uses discretionary accounting accruals to move earnings upward toward analysts' earnings forecasts when it appears that earnings before discretionary accruals will fall short of the forecast. An earnings shortfall relative to analysts' forecasts could lead management to fear lower compensation and an increase in the likelihood of job termination. The article finds that firms whose earnings before discretionary accruals are below analysts' forecasts use income-increasing discretionary accruals and do so to a greater extent than do firms whose earnings before discretionary accruals are above analysts' forecasts.     

The association between earnings quality and the cost of equity capital: Evidence from the UK

Empirical evidence that examines the association between earnings quality and the cost of equity supports theoretical work that information risk is a non-diversifiable risk factor. However, the main body of evidence, centred on Francis et al.'s (2004) seminal work, focuses on earnings quality measures that are based on US GAAP. This study extends the analysis of Francis et al. (2004) for a sample of UK listed firms during the period 2005 to 2011. This setting and time period enables us to examine the effect of IFRS based earnings on the pricing of earnings quality and how this relation is influenced by a period of severe macro-economic turbulence as in the case of the recent global financial crisis. We find a significant negative association between each accounting-based earnings quality proxy considered separately and the cost of equity. Our results also indicate that during the financial crisis the relationship between earnings quality and cost of equity becomes more prominent than in the pre-crisis period. Our results also document that investors place more importance on the innate component of accruals quality than on the discretionary component. Our results should be of interest to US standard setters who are considering adopting or converging to IFRS.