The main purpose of this study is to investigate whether and how Japanese firms manage reported earnings. We first investigate whether Japanese firm managers engage in earnings management to avoid decreases in earnings and losses by examining earnings distribution. However, the test of earnings...

Prior research documents that conditional conservatism, measured as the asymmetric timeliness of earnings reflecting bad versus good news, varies with cross-country differences in institutional regimes. In this paper, we examine the determinants of conditional conservatism and related earnings...

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...

Local governments on the municipal level were among the first organizations to take part in the accounting reform in Greece that sought the transformation of the traditional budgetary cash accounting system to a new system that combines cash and accrual accounting information. In this paper we...

We compare US firms' earnings with reconciled earnings for cross listed non-US firms. Non-US firms' earnings exhibit more evidence of smoothing, greater tendency to manage towards a target, lower association with share price and less timely recognition of losses. Firms from countries with weaker...

When annual earnings are regressed on annual returns, the returns coefficient is higher when returns are negative. The difference between the coefficients of earnings on positive and negative returns is called asymmetric timeliness of earnings and, in the accounting literature, is used...

As shown in the international business literature, the ability of controlling owners to extract private benefits is greater in countries with weaker legal institutions. In these countries, providing credible financial information could play an especially important role in reducing information...

The capitalization of research and development (Ramp;D) costs is a controversial accounting issue because of the contention that such capitalization is motivated by incentives to manipulate earnings. Based on a sample of Italian listed companies, this paper examines whether companies' decisions...

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...

This study explores the market response to achieving analyst earnings expectations, distinguishing between expectations achieved through earnings forecast guidance and earnings management. We consider three earnings management tools: real earnings management, working capital accruals management,...