Most scholars have indicated corporations using accounting conservatism to reduce earnings manipulation, although certain scholars believe that firms have more incentive to increase earnings manipulation. Institutional investors play an important external monitoring role, and affect firm's...

Using Benford's (1938) law, this study documents pervasive evidence that managers of publicly listed Taiwanese firms tend to engage in earnings manipulative activities, rounding earnings numbers to achieve key reference points. Consistent with prior studies on rounding behavior in other...