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Earnings cosmetics in a tax-driven accounting environment: evidence from Finnish public firms

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  • Jyrki Niskanen
  • Matti Keloharju

Abstract

Finnish firms are known to manage earnings downwards to avoid income taxes. This study suggests that they simultaneously manage earnings upwards in a smaller scale. The idea behind this behaviour is that humans may perceive a profit of, say, 301 million as abnormally larger than a profit of 298 million. Consequently, firms tend to adjust the second leftmost digit of earnings to exceed nine in order to make the first digit of earnings larger by one. Such corporate behaviour has been previously documented in New Zealand and in the USA. Our study finds a similar phenomenon in Finland. Our results show that although the largest second digits (eight and nine) are fewer than expected, only sixes and sevens are statistically significantly managed upwards.

Suggested Citation

  • Jyrki Niskanen & Matti Keloharju, 2000. "Earnings cosmetics in a tax-driven accounting environment: evidence from Finnish public firms," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(3), pages 443-452.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:euract:v:9:y:2000:i:3:p:443-452
    DOI: 10.1080/09638180020017159
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    6. Henselmann, Klaus & Scherr, Elisabeth & Ditter, Dominik, 2012. "Applying Benford's Law to individual financial reports: An empirical investigation on the basis of SEC XBRL filings," Working Papers in Accounting Valuation Auditing 2012-1, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Chair of Accounting and Auditing.
    7. Dlugosz, Stephan & Müller-Funk, Ulrich, 2012. "Ziffernanalyse zur Betrugserkennung in Finanzverwaltungen: Prüfung von Kassenbelegen," Arbeitsberichte des Instituts für Wirtschaftsinformatik 133, University of Münster, Department of Information Systems.
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    10. Bonache, Adrien & Moris, Karen & Maurice, Jonathan, 2009. "Risque associé à l'utilisation de la loi de Benford pour détecter les fraudes dans le secteur de la mode [Risk of Reviews based on Benford Law in the Fashion Sector]," MPRA Paper 15352, University Library of Munich, Germany.
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    12. Yves Mard, 2003. "Performance Comptable Et Gestion Des Resultats," Post-Print halshs-00582798, HAL.
    13. Theoharry Grammatikos & Nikolaos I. Papanikolaou, 2021. "Applying Benford’s Law to Detect Accounting Data Manipulation in the Banking Industry," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 59(1), pages 115-142, April.
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    15. Sandeep Goel, 2014. "Creating Accounting Numbers Using Designed Choices: A Case Study of Indian Hotel Industry," Oblik i finansi, Institute of Accounting and Finance, issue 3, pages 29-35, September.
    16. Oriol Amat & Catherine Gowthorpe, 2004. "Creative accounting: Nature, incidence and ethical issues," Economics Working Papers 749, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
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    19. Bonache, Adrien & Moris, Karen, 2009. "Nonlinear and chaotic patterns in Japanese video game console sales and consequences for management control," MPRA Paper 18196, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Utpal Bhattacharya & Craig W. Holden & Stacey Jacobsen, 2012. "Penny Wise, Dollar Foolish: Buy-Sell Imbalances On and Around Round Numbers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(2), pages 413-431, February.
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