Managers use management accounting and control systems (MACS) to monitor and detect deviations from earnings targets. We examine an unexplored side of MACS: its effects on earnings management. We predict and find evidence that managers interactively use MACS to focus the attention of the whole...

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...