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Understanding the “numbers game”

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  • Bird, Andrew
  • Karolyi, Stephen A.
  • Ruchti, Thomas G.

Abstract

Two well-known stylized facts on earnings management are that the earnings surprise distribution has a discontinuity at zero, and that positive earnings surprises are associated with positive abnormal returns. We link these two facts in a model of the earnings management decision in which the manager trades off the capital market benefits of meeting earnings benchmarks against the costs of manipulation. We develop a new structural methodology to estimate the model and uncover the unobserved cost function. The estimated model parameters yield the percentage of manipulating firms, magnitude of manipulation, noise in manipulation, and sufficient statistics to evaluate proxies for identifying firms suspected of manipulation. Finally, we use the Sarbanes–Oxley Act as a policy experiment and find that by increasing costs, the Act reduced equilibrium earnings management by 36%. This reduction occurred despite an increase in benefits, consistent with the market rationally becoming less skeptical of firms that just meet benchmarks.

Suggested Citation

  • Bird, Andrew & Karolyi, Stephen A. & Ruchti, Thomas G., 2019. "Understanding the “numbers game”," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(2).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jaecon:v:68:y:2019:i:2:s0165410119300370
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jacceco.2019.101242
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    2. Matthew J. Bloomfield, 2021. "The Asymmetric Effect of Reporting Flexibility on Priced Risk," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(3), pages 867-910, June.
    3. Leonidas Enrique de la Rosa & Nikolaj Kirkeby Niebuhr, 2019. "Loss aversion and the zero-earnings discontinuity," Economics Working Papers 2019-09, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.

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    Structural estimation; Earnings management;

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