I examine whether managers use discretion in revenue recognition to avoid three earnings benchmarks. I find that managers use discretion in both accrued revenue (i.e., accounts receivable) and deferred revenue (i.e., advances from customers) to avoid negative earnings surprises, but find little...

Prior research has demonstrated an association between the magnitude of accrual anomaly-related trading returns and accrual reliability. This study first demonstrates an association between audit quality and accrual reliability. It then links this result and the prior literature to demonstrate...

We examine earnings management behavior around SEOs, focusing on both real activities and accrual-based manipulation. Although research has addressed the issues of earnings management around SEOs and earnings management via real activities manipulation, ours is the first paper to put these two...

This paper asks two questions. First, has the prevalence of expectations management to meet/beat analyst expectations changed in the aftermath of the 2001-2002 accounting scandals and the passage of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX)? Second, has the mix among the three mechanisms used for...

I examine whether managers use discretion in the two accounts related to revenue recognition, accounts receivable and deferred revenue, to avoid three common earnings benchmarks. I find that managers use discretion in both accounts to avoid negative earnings surprises. I find that neither of...

We document that firms' management of accounting earnings increased steadily from 1987 until the passage of the Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX), with a significant increase during the period prior to SOX, followed by a significant decline after passage of SOX. However, the increase in earnings...

We recently conducted a comprehensive survey that analyzes how senior financial executives make decisions related to performance measurement and voluntary disclosure. In particular, we ask CFOs what earnings benchmarks they care about and which factors motivate executives to exercise discretion,...

We analyze whether the nondisclosure of accrual information at earnings announcements might contribute to the abnormal accrual anomaly. Prior studies draw inferences about the pricing of (abnormal) accruals at earnings announcements and around the filing dates through analyses of the long-term...

We use stock return data to investigate the effects of the First Executive (FE) failure on other life insurance firms. In contrast to previous studies, we explicitly test for the separate effects of individual (retail) and institutional customer responses. The announcement of an accounting...

We investigate two potential deterrents of aggressive pro forma reporting. First, the design of compensation contracts can encourage managers to adopt either a short- or a long-term focus. While it is difficult to observe whether compensation contracts are tied directly to pro forma earnings...