This paper uses a new approach to examine whether income smoothing garbles earnings information or improves the informativeness of past and current earnings about future earnings and cash flows. We measure income smoothing by the negative correlation of a firm s change in discretionary accruals...

We find evidence consistent with Italian non-listed subsidiaries engaging in accrual and real earnings management, so that their listed parents can meet or beat benchmarks. Thus, the parent firm drives the earnings management of the subsidiaries.We identify parents that are more likely to have...

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...

We examine how capitalization vs expensing of R&D costs affects how the firm manages earnings with R&D, and the economic consequences of the earnings management method. We focus on the period around the UK’s switch from UK GAAP, which allowed expensing, to IFRS, which mandated capitalization...