Is Earnings Management a Technique to Reduce Cost of Capital？ Exploratory Study on Indian Companies

Earnings management has attracted lots of academicians towards the research due to the emerging frauds and downfall of great corporate giants of the world. Mainly earnings measurement is based on the accounting estimates which managers can easily manipulate for their self-interest. The study investigates the relationship between cost of capital and the earnings measurement for the Indian firms. Measurement of earnings is mostly computed by taking either discretionary accruals （DAC） or non-discretionary accruals （NDAC）. Present study has used Dechow, Sloan, and Sweeney （1995） model for earnings measurement and for analyzing the results. Panel data regression has also been used. Findings of the study conclude that DAC has a significant influence on cost of capital, but NDAC has no influence.

Earnings Management and Fraudulent Financial Reporting： The Malaysian Story

Earnings management research has a long and rich history. The agency conflict, incentives, rationalization, opportunity plus having the capability among the managers to manipulate the financial statements lead them to commit fraud. The loopholes in the standards or the deviation from real operational activities promote this situation to prolong. In relation to this issue, this study examines the earnings management behavior among fraud firms in Malaysia. Further, this study examines the relationship between accruals earnings management as a proxy variable for discretionary accruals and real earnings management as the proxy variable for discretionary cash flow. Sample of 57 alleged fraud firms was selected based on the fraudulent financial reporting offences announced in Bursa Malaysia website. The sample data are collected from public firms which committed fraud from 2001 to 2013. This study found a significant negative relationship between accruals earnings management and real earnings management among the fraud firms in Malaysia suggesting that these firms aggressively manage earnings downwards or upwards essentially to avoid regulators scrutiny apart from aiming to achieve personal incentives. The study significantly finds evidence that fraud firms manage earnings on a sequential basis between accruals earnings management and real earnings management prior to fraud year. The findings indicate that firms opt for real earnings management and make full use of its distinguished features of not easily traceable to continue managing earnings immediately subsequent to fraud year. This study may assist regulators, auditors, and policymakers to curb earnings management patterns that have high likelihood of becoming part of fraud antecedent.

Toward the Effect of Audit Quality on Earnings Management——Empirical Evidence from Manufacturing Enterprises Listed in Shanghai Stock Market

Nowadays, earnings management is a hot issue, but most of the researches focus on the incentives of earnings management and few of them refer to the effect of audit quality on earnings management. In this study, we directly examine the effect of external audit quality on earnings management by using discretionary accruals. We find that the discretionary accruals of non-dual audit companies are significantly greater than those of dual audit companies. We also find that clients of non-First Ten auditors intend to report greater discretionary accruals than those of First Ten auditors.

Earnings Management Practices in Indian Companies： A Cross-Sectional Analysis

Corporate accounting frauds over the last two decades have caused massive erosion of investor wealth and shattered public confidence in regulators and capital markets. Deliberate manipulation of financial numbers by a company is rarely a one-off event; it is more a culture of widespread earnings management that permeates an organization and eventually leads to a full-blown accounting fraud. This paper looks at earnings management practices in Indian companies and examines the extent of earnings management prevalent across firms of varying market capitalization. The present study examines 130 listed Indian companies during the period of 2013-2015. The findings of this study provide a measure of the quality of financial reporting in India. Modified Jones model （1995） is used to estimate discretionary accruals （DA）, which is considered as a proxy for earnings management. The average DA is estimated at 5.6% of the total assets of the firms, which is comparable to the estimates in other parts of the world （about 1%-5% of total assets）. A sector-specific analysis reveals presence of higher earnings manipulation in the consumer durable and energy sectors. Large cap companies are found to show a lower level of eamings management as compared to the small-cap firms. The study also finds a dip in the magnitude of DA in 2015, which is the first year of application of the new Companies Act 2013. Subsequent years will reveal the true success of the new Act in enforcing a stricter regime of corporate governance and greater accountability of corporate boards and audit committees. International studies point towards a high degree of correlation between effective audit committees and lower levels of earnings management in companies. Further work in this field from an Indian context will help identify factors that have a constraining effect on earnings management, and ultimately help preserve the sanctity of reported financial numbers.

Do Auditors Postpone Reporting in Response to Insider Trading？ A Korean Perspective

How do auditors react to insider trading in client firms？ This paper examines the effects of insider trading on the audit report date. Insiders tend to urge managers to manage earnings to make more profits through trading their own firm＇s shares. If auditors play an important role in monitoring managers, they may pay more attention to insider trading, which may delay the filing of audit reports. We find that the more the insiders trade their stocks, the longer the audit report lag is. In addition, to address the effectiveness of auditors＇ efforts to prevent managers from earnings management, we test whether an extra effort by auditors can reduce aggressive accounting. We also find that auditors deter aggressive accounting by stretching report lag in response to insider trading, implying that auditors＇ efforts weaken insiders＇ opportunistic behavior. This study contributes to the literature by providing evidence that insider trading is a significant determinant of the audit report lag. We suggest that auditors are interested in insiders＇ activity and it can enhance the quality of accounting information.

The Importance of Earnings Management Detection Models to Identify Fraud： A Case From Italian Listed Firms

Markets can get the confidence of investors enhancing the quality of governance and audit systems surrounding a firm. Financial reporting is a main component of them, being the basis for information necessary to investors＇ decisions. Managers have a chance to manipulate information provided in financial statements, in order to offer a better image of a firm to its potential and effective investors. The objective of this study is to evaluate the possibility of detecting extreme cases of earnings management and to check the predictive ability of the discretionary accruals models on the event of fraudulent earnings restatement. Through the abuse of reporting incentives, a manager gives out false information that should be averted and punished by regulators in a fair market system. The authors check the efficacy of different earnings management detection models in predicting discretionary manipulations and study the correlation between the frequency of manipulation and the event of fraud.

Reexamine Cookie Jar and Big Bath Accounting Using the Backing-Out Method

Prior research documents income-decreasing earnings management in the situation when true earnings exceed the targets by a substantial amount and in the situation when true earnings fall far below the targets and accounting reserves are not sufficient to reach the targets. These two situations are well-known as cookie jar and big bath earnings management. True earnings are defined as pre-managed earnings （PMEs） and are measured as reported earnings minus adjusted discretionary accruals （DAs）. However, the use of PMEs can induce a spurious association between earnings management and PMEs above or below the benchmarks, which are known as the backing-out problem （Lim ＆ Lustgarten, 2002）. This study reexamines the cookie jar and big bath type of earnings management and addresses in particular the issue of backing-out problem. By using an Australian sample of 3,326 observations covering all listed firms in the Australian Securities Exchange （ASX） for a period from 1999 to 2006, this study suggests that the finding of cookie jar accounting is not simply a consequence of the backing-out problem. The results show that an income-decreasing earnings management occurs when PMEs are well above the targets. This is consistent with the first argument of cookie jar accounting--Finns reduce current earnings in order to save some income for the future. However, the results do not support the big bath accounting theory.