Studies suggest that when a language requires grammatical marking of future events, speakers prefer immediate payoffs and engage in less future-oriented behavior. If future costs of tax avoidance are non-trivial, we posit that strong future time reference (FTR) in languages would lower...

We predict that managers of firms in countries where languages do not require speakers to grammatically mark future events perceive future consequences of earnings management to be more imminent, and therefore they are less likely to engage in earnings management. Using data from 38 countries,...

We predict that managers of firms in countries where languages do not require speakers to grammatically mark future events perceive future consequences of earnings management to be more imminent, and therefore, they are less likely to engage in earnings management. Using data from 38 countries...