We investigate the extent to which the overvaluation hypothesis provides incentives for managers to beat earnings benchmarks, and whether this benchmark beating can be reliably interpreted as evidence of earnings management. We carefully identify firms immediately above earnings benchmarks that...

Using a method that avoids the need to specify earnings expectations (Ball and Shivakumar 2008), we demonstrate that the period surrounding the semi-annual announcement of Australian firms’ earnings is, on average, an important source of information. Although there is substantial year-to-year...