Download or read book Short Selling Pressure Reporting Transparency and the Use of Real and Accruals Earnings Management to Meet Benchmarks written by Kristina M. Rennekamp and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prior literature finds that short selling is beneficial to the market because it increases liquidity and helps to discipline optimistic market prices. In this paper we use two controlled experiments to examine the potential for an unintended consequence of allowing short selling or easing short selling restrictions. Because prior research identifies short sellers as sophisticated market participants who have the ability to see through accrual earnings management choices, we predict and find that, when reporting is transparent, managers are more likely to use real earnings management (REM) relative to accrual earnings management (AEM) when short selling restrictions are relaxed. This is consistent with the idea that REM activities are more defensible as the result of legitimate operating decisions, and are therefore more likely to hold up to scrutiny from short sellers. Overall, our results suggest that regulations that are unrelated to financial reporting can affect how managers respond to the transparency that arises from financial reporting regulations.

Download or read book The Relation Between Earnings Management and Non GAAP Reporting written by Ervin L. Black and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Managers have a variety of tools at their disposal to influence stakeholder perceptions. Earnings management and the strategic reporting of non-GAAP earnings are just two of the available menu choices. We explore how real earnings management and accruals management influence the probability that a company will disclose a non-GAAP adjusted earnings metric in its earnings press release and the likelihood that it will do so aggressively. We first investigate situations where managers already meet analysts' expectations either based on strong operating performance or after employing real and accruals management. We find that when solid operating performance alone allows firms to meet expectations, managers do not employ earnings management or non-GAAP reporting. However, when managers meet expectations using real and accruals management, they are significantly less likely to report a non-GAAP earnings metric. Next, we explore scenarios where companies fall short of expectations. We find that when they just miss expectations after managing GAAP earnings, they are significantly more likely to employ non-GAAP reporting, suggesting that the timing and relatively costless nature of non-GAAP reporting allows managers to appear to meet expectations on a non-GAAP basis when managed GAAP earnings fall short. Moreover, we find that companies are more likely to report non-GAAP earnings (and to do so aggressively) when (i) they are unable to use real or accruals earnings management, (ii) are constrained by prior-period accruals management, and (iii) their operating performance is poor. Taken together, our results are consistent with a substitute relation between non-GAAP reporting and both real and accruals management.

Download or read book The Interactions Between Real Earnings Management and Short Selling Activity written by Zhang Yu and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study builds on two streams of literature that recently draw the attention of researchers: real earnings management (REM) and short selling. Graham et al (2005) reports that managers choose REM over accounting methods to manage earnings. The survey results suggest that REM is likely to be more prevalent than accrual-based earnings management, and should deserve more attention from academic research. Short selling has become a big concern to researchers due to the recent financial crisis and the combat against naked short sales. I empirically test how short sellers trade on firms' REM information, and whether short selling activity can serve as an external monitoring mechanism on REM. Since short selling activity and REM are jointly determined, I explore the research question on the interactions between REM and short selling activity via a simultaneous equation system. I further test whether the interactions between REM and short selling activity are affected by the recent short selling regulation change. The results show strong interactions between REM and short selling activity both before and after the recent SEC short selling regulation change. Short sellers use accounting information to trade. Particularly, they avoid shorting stocks with high levels of REM, which suggests that firms use costly REM to signal their good future performance. On the other hand, heavily shorted firms cannot afford to do REM, which supports the argument that short selling has an external disciplinary role over firms' REM behavior. The results hold if I use OLS or simultaneous equations. This study enriches the literature about how short sellers trade on firms' earnings management information and extends the disciplinary role of short selling over firms' REM behavior.

Download or read book Earnings Quality and Short Selling written by KoEun Park and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prior research provides evidence consistent with managers using real earnings management (REM) to increase earnings. This study examines whether short sellers exploit the overvaluation of firms employing REM. I find that firms with more REM have higher subsequent short interest. The positive relation between REM and short interest is more pronounced in settings where the costs associated with accrual-based earnings management are high, such as when a firm has low accounting flexibility or faces greater scrutiny from a high quality auditor. I also find some evidence that short sellers respond to REM more than to other fundamental signals of firm overvaluation. My inferences are robust to the use of propensity score matching. Collectively, my evidence suggests that short sellers not only trade on REM information, but they also trade as if they understand the substitutive nature of alternative earnings management methods. This study provides additional insight into the important role that short sellers play in monitoring managerial operating decisions and overall earnings quality.

Download or read book Short Term Earnings Guidance and Earnings Management written by Andrew C. Call and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We study the relation between short-term earnings guidance and earnings management. We find that firms issuing short-term earnings forecasts exhibit significantly lower absolute abnormal accruals, our proxy for earnings management, than do firms that do not issue earnings forecasts. Regular guiders also exhibit less earnings management than do less regular guiders. These findings are contrary to conventional wisdom but consistent with the implications of Dutta and Gigler (2002) and the expectations alignment role of earnings guidance (Ajinkya and Gift 1984). Our results continue to hold after we control for self-selection and potential reverse causality concerns, and in a setting where managers are documented to have strong incentives to manage earnings. Additional analysis reveals that guiding firms exhibit less income-increasing accrual management whether firms guide expectations upwards or downwards, and no evidence that guiding firms inflate earnings through real activities management. We also provide evidence to demonstrate that meeting-or-beating benchmarks is not an appropriate proxy for earnings management in our research setting.

Download or read book Short Selling and Earnings Management written by Vivian W. Fang and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During 2005 to 2007, the SEC ordered a pilot program in which one-third of the Russell 3000 index were arbitrarily chosen as pilot stocks and exempted from short-sale price tests. Pilot firms' discretionary accruals and likelihood of marginally beating earnings targets decrease during this period, and revert to pre-experiment levels when the program ends. After the program starts, pilot firms are more likely to be caught for fraud initiated before the program, and their stock returns better incorporate earnings information. These results indicate that short selling, or its prospect, curbs earnings management, helps detect fraud, and improves price efficiency.

Download or read book Earnings Accruals and Real Activities Management around Initial Public Offerings written by Peter Ising and published by Springer Gabler. This book was released on 2014-04-30 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The beginning of the new millennium was characterized by company scandals in accounting around the world. A transparent and fair presentation of financial statements is beneficial for capital market participants. Especially around initial public offerings different incentives of these players exist to influence financial statements in diverse aspects. Therefore, studies of earnings management try to identify abnormal behavior. This thesis covers additional aspects to shed light on substantial drivers of discretionary reporting behavior around going public. Factors like influence on real activities, industry affiliation, and specific years in the IPO process add further insight to this theoretical and practical topic. The dependence on these factors is high and confirm that company specifics are important for interpretation of results.

Download or read book Discretionary Accruals and Earnings Management written by Benjamin C. Ayers and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 46 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We investigate whether the positive associations between discretionary accrual proxies and beating earnings benchmarks hold for comparisons of groups segregated at other points in the distributions of earnings, earnings changes, and analysts-based unexpected earnings. We refer to these points as quot;pseudoquot; targets. Results suggest that the positive association between discretionary accruals and beating the profit benchmark extends to pseudo targets throughout the earnings distribution. We find similar results for the earnings change distribution. In contrast, we find few positive associations between discretionary accruals and beating pseudo targets derived from analysts-based unexpected earnings. We develop an additional analysis that accounts for the systematic association between discretionary accruals and earnings and earnings changes. Results suggest that the positive association between discretionary accruals and earnings intensifies around the actual profit benchmark (i.e., where earnings management incentives may be more pronounced). We find similar effects around the actual earnings increase benchmark. However, analogous patterns exist for cash flows around the profit and earnings increase benchmarks. In sum, we are unable to eliminate other plausible explanations for the associations between discretionary accruals and beating the profit and earnings increase benchmarks.

Download or read book Short Selling Pressure Stock Price Behavior and Management Forecast Precision written by Yinghua Li and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using a natural experiment (Regulation SHO), we show that short selling pressure and consequent stock price behavior have a causal effect on managers' voluntary disclosure choices. Specifically, we find that managers respond to a positive exogenous shock to short selling pressure and price sensitivity to bad news by reducing the precision of bad news forecasts. This finding on management forecasts appears to be generalizable to other corporate disclosures. In particular, we find that, in response to increased short selling pressure, managers also reduce the readability (or increase the fuzziness) of bad news annual reports. Overall, our results suggest that maintaining the current level of stock prices is an important consideration in managers' strategic disclosure decisions.

Download or read book Measuring the Pervasiveness of Earnings Management from Quarterly Accrual Volatility written by Zhaoyang Gu and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Earnings management is a key issue for financial reporting. The purpose of this paper is to derive a set of indices to measure the pervasiveness of earnings management (PEM) using the properties of quarterly accrual volatility. The PEM index can be viewed as a quality measure of financial reporting and an effectiveness measure for financial monitoring. In contrast to mean-shifting studies in the literature, our measure based on accrual volatility yields two major advantages. First, it relieves us of the necessity of precise assumptions regarding economic events. Second, it provides a macro-perspective on the overall patterns in earnings management. The methodology based on accrual volatility can address issues like the earnings quality, the nature of the informational environment, and the effect of accounting standard setting. The seasonal pattern of accrual volatility can provide a trace of earnings management, even in the absence of further information about specific economic events and resulting managerial actions. Our working hypothesis is that pervasive earnings management leads to the first order stochastic dominance of fourth quarter accrual volatility over the other three quarters. We provide evidence on the relations between previously documented drivers of earnings management and seasonal accrual heteroskedasticity. These drivers include executive compensation, regulatory requirements, bond covenants, and political costs. This empirical support of our working hypothesis validates our application of Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) Distance to measure the pervasiveness of earnings management (PEM). We use raw total accruals as the basis for measuring PEM1 and use residuals from Jones? [1991] model to control for mechanical factors in our measurement of PEM2. The usefulness of controls is an empirical issue. Our results suggest that additional controls do not add much power to detect earnings management over and above the simplest measure based on total accruals. KS Distance is powerful in detecting the difference around the central locations of two distributions, but not powerful at the tail ends. We develop two other measures for PEM. First, we estimate the fraction of fourth quarter accruals volatility exceeding the 95th percentile value for the first three quarters (base period) distribution. This fraction, reduced by 5%, constitutes PEM3. Second, we design a simulation method to determine PEM4 as the percentage of firms with a given magnitude of accrual adjustment for the base period accrual volatility to match that of the fourth quarter. Both PEM3 and PEM4 are estimates of percentage of firms involved in earnings management of a given magnitude. However, we should note here that our PEM indices are more likely ordinal than cardinal measures. Though our methods of measuring PEM rely on indirect measurement, we provide direct evidence on the relevance of our method through a series of external validation checks. First, we use a subsample of firms subject to SEC actions relating to alleged earnings manipulation. This data was collected from Accounting and Auditing Enforcement Releases (AAER's) by the SEC. We compare PEM?s for the AAER sample to PEM?s for the COMPUSTAT sample to assess the power of our measures. The PEM indices for the AAER sample are two to three times as large as the PEM indices for the COMPUSTAT sample. Though we avoid interpreting the relative magnitudes literally, these differences do suggest a positive correlation between our PEM indices and the degree of earnings management. Second, we conduct case studies for 10 firms identified by fourth quarter accrual volatility as strongly suspect of earnings management. These studies show that suspect firms frequently engage in activities associated with earnings management, such as CEO turnover, restructuring, public offerings, or they experience losses. Applying our PEM indices to COMPUSTAT data, we find that pervasiveness of earnings management has been relatively stable in the period of 1988-1996.

Download or read book Short Term Earnings Guidance and Accrual Based Earnings Management written by Andrew C. Call and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Motivated by recent practitioners' concerns that short-term earnings guidance leads to managerial myopia, we investigate the impact of short-term earnings guidance on earnings management. Using a propensity-score matched control sample, we find strong and consistent evidence that the issuance of short-term quarterly earnings guidance is associated with less, rather than more, earnings management. We also find that regular guiders exhibit less earnings management than do less regular guiders. Our findings hold using both abnormal accruals and discretionary revenues to measure earnings management, and after controlling for potential reverse causality concerns. Furthermore, in a setting where managers have particularly strong capital market incentives to manage earnings, we corroborate the above findings by documenting that earnings guidance either has no impact on or actually mitigates earnings management. Overall, our evidence does not support the criticism from practitioners that short-term earnings guidance leads to more earnings management.

Download or read book Management Control Systems written by Kenneth A. Merchant and published by Pearson Education. This book was released on 2007 with total page 876 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With its unique range of case studies, real life examples and comprehensive coverage of the latest management control-related tools and techniques, Management Control Systems is the ideal guide to this complex and multidimensional subject for upper level undergraduates, postgraduates and practising professionals.

Download or read book Introduction to Earnings Management written by Malek El Diri and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-08-20 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides researchers and scholars with a comprehensive and up-to-date analysis of earnings management theory and literature. While it raises new questions for future research, the book can be also helpful to other parties who rely on financial reporting in making decisions like regulators, policy makers, shareholders, investors, and gatekeepers e.g., auditors and analysts. The book summarizes the existing literature and provides insight into new areas of research such as the differences between earnings management, fraud, earnings quality, impression management, and expectation management; the trade-off between earnings management activities; the special measures of earnings management; and the classification of earnings management motives based on a comprehensive theoretical framework.

Download or read book Capitalizing China written by Joseph P. H. Fan and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: La 4e de couverture indique : "Despite a vast accumulation of private capital, China is not embracing capitalism. Deceptively familiar capitalist features disguise the profoundly unfamiliar foundations of "market socialism with Chinese characteristics." The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), by controlling the career advancement of all senior personnel in all regulatory agencies, all state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and virtually all major financial institutions state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and senior Party positions in all but the smallest non-SOE enterprises, retains sole possession of Lenin's Commanding Heights. The chapters in this volume examine China's high savings rate, banking system, financial markets, financial regulations, corporate governance, and public finances; and consider policy alternatives the CCP might consider if its goal is China's elevation into the ranks of high income countries."

Download or read book Investor Protection and Corporate Governance written by Alberto Chong and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2007-06-26 with total page 584 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Investor Protection and Corporate Governance' analyzes the impact of corporate governance on firm performance and valuation. Using unique datasets gathered at the firm-level the first such data in the region and results from a homogeneous corporate governance questionnaire, the book examines corporate governance characteristics, ownership structures, dividend policies, and performance measures. The book's analysis reveals the very high levels of ownership and voting rights concentrations and monolithic governance structures in the largest samples of Latin American companies up to now, and new data emphasize the importance of specific characteristics of the investor protection regimes in several Latin American countries. By and large, those firms with better governance measures across several dimensions are granted higher valuations and thus lower cost of capital. This title will be useful to researchers, policy makers, government officials, and other professionals involved in corporate governance, economic policy, and business finance, law, and management.

Download or read book The Effects of Competition written by George Symeonidis and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2002-01-18 with total page 558 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A theoretical and empirical study of the effects of competition across a broad range of industries. Policies to promote competition are high on the political agenda worldwide. But in a constantly changing marketplace, the effects of more intense competition on firm conduct, market structure, and industry performance are often hard to distinguish. This study combines game-theoretic models with empirical evidence from a "natural experiment" of policy reform. The introduction in the United Kingdom of the 1956 Restrictive Trade Practices Act led to the registration and subsequent abolition of explicit restrictive agreements between firms and the intensification of price competition across a range of manufacturing industries. An equally large number of industries were not affected by the legislation. Using data from before and after the 1956 act, this book compares the two groups of industries to determine the effect of price competition on concentration, firm and plant numbers, profitability, advertising intensity, and innovation. The book avoids two problems common to empirical studies of competition: how to measure the intensity of competition and how to unravel the links between competition and other variables. Because the change in the intensity of competition had an external cause, there is no need to measure the intensity of competition directly, and it is possible to identify one-way causal effects when estimating the impact of competition. The book also examines issues such as the industries in which collusion is more likely to occur; the effect of cartels and cartel laws on market structure and profitability; the links between competition, advertising, and innovation; and the constraints on the exercise of merger and antitrust policies.

Download or read book Evidence on the Tradeoff Between Real Manipulation and Accrual Manipulation to 25 Pages 26 to 50 Pages 51 to 75 Pages 76 to 100 Pages 101 to 120 written by Amy Yunzhi Zang and published by ProQuest. This book was released on 2000 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: