The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has long asserted that earnings management practices result in adverse consequences for investors. We examine whether SEC oversight affects firms' accounting quality in terms of earnings management trade-offs. We expect that increased firm-specific...

Because Chief Operating Officers (COOs) are responsible for internal operations and because the use of real earnings management (REM) can have negative consequences on longterm operating performance, we posit that COO firms will be less likely to use REM to inflate near-term earnings. Consistent...

We examine whether firms resort to real earnings management when their ability to manage accruals is constrained by higher quality auditors. In settings involving strong upward earnings management incentives, i.e., for firms that meet or just beat earnings benchmarks and firms that issue...

Regulators do not prohibit auditors from providing tax services to their audit clients, provided these services are preapproved by audit committees. I examine whether the association between auditor-provided tax services and earnings management in tax expense varies with audit committee...

Raising public environmental awareness provides many benefits. However, using an exogenous shock—the unexpected release of the environmental documentary “Under the Dome” in China—we show that raising environmental awareness may have the unintended consequence of distorting firms’...