Earnings announcements are clustered in calendar time and such clusters, referred to as earnings seasons, are characterized by intense arrival of information from firms in an industry. The news arrives not only from earnings announcement by the firm, announced news, but also from pre-emptive...

Prior studies document both an improvement and deterioration in the future operating performance of firms engaging in real earnings management (REM) to meet earnings benchmarks. These results suggest that some firms use REM to signal their favorable prospects, whereas others use REM...