This study hypothesizes and tests whether the degrees to which managers exercise earnings discretion relates to their value system (i.e., culture) as well as the institutional features (i.e., legal environment) of their country. We find that uncertainty avoidance and individualism dimensions of...

I discuss the analysis in Piotroski and Srinivasan (2008) and how it helps to disentangle the effects of Sarbanes Oxley on observed listing patterns. Since the paper is quite thorough and reflects the comments from many workshop participants, I focus on broader issues. Further, I attempt to...

Using a sample of 185 Chinese IPO firms listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange during the period 1999 to 2001, we show that related party (RP) sales of goods and services could be used opportunistically to manage earnings upwards in the pre-IPO period. We also provide evidence that such behavior...

Corporate governance literature advances the idea that certain aspects of board of directors' structure improve monitoring of managerial decisions. Among these is the managers' decision to manage earnings. Prior studies have shown that earnings management, in widely-held public companies, is...

This study analyzes determinants and effects of differences between Domestic Accounting Standards (DAS) and International Accounting Standards (IAS). We use an extensive list of differences between DAS and IAS to create two indices, absence and divergence. Absence measures the extent to which...

The poor stock price performance of firms conducting initial public offerings is one of the recent puzzles in financial literature. We detect this market anomaly for Spanish IPO firms and we investigate whether earnings management around the time of the offering can explain these results....

We analyze the ability of the capital structure and the ownership structure as mechanisms of control of the managers of the firms and to reduce their accounting discretionary power for a sample of Chilean firms. Using earnings management and abnormal accruals as indicators of discretionary...

We test the earnings management behavior of Russian companies in the years 2001 and 2002. We analyze the effects of ownership structure on the extent of tax management. We first hypothesize that Russian firms manage earnings downwards to reduce income taxes. We test for irregularities in the...

Two standard setting approaches have emerged globally to guide the choice of accounting for securitizations: the control and components approach (FAS125/FAS140) and the risks and rewards transfer approach (IAS39). A lack of consensus about derecognition accounting is a major impediment to...

In this paper we focus on the conflict of interests among shareholders as a possible determinant of earnings management. Using a sample of 3,559 listed firms from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, and Italy between 2008 and 2013, we analyse how the distribution of...