the earnings volatility of the firm's own reported fiscal year. To the extent managers use accruals to reduce annual …-year earnings. We do this by examining income smoothing based on pseudo fiscal years. For each firm, we create pseudo-year earnings … using four consecutive quarters other than the reported fiscal year. We then compare earnings volatility of pseudo years to …

We examine why, as a summary statistic, earnings is better than cash flows at explaining contemporaneous returns … despite being a worse predictor of future operating cash flows. Several studies compare the ability of earnings and operating … cash flows. Although past results are mixed, recent studies suggest earnings are a better summary predictor of returns …

This paper investigates how manipulating different earnings components will affect the likelihood of accounting …-related shareholder litigation. Firms can manipulate earnings upward by accelerating revenue recognition, understating expenses, and … overstating gains associated with special items. Firms can manipulate earnings downward by delaying revenue recognition …

earnings and how that variation explains variation in the relation between aggregate earnings growth and market returns over … time. We find that the correlation between aggregate earnings growth and leading market-wide real output shocks (measured … 2000s, which explains why the aggregate earnings-return relation is significantly positive in this period. Further analysis …