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Do firms manipulate earnings before accelerated share repurchases?

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  • Chiu, Yung-Chin
  • Liang, Woan-lih

Abstract

This paper investigates whether firms engaging in accelerated share repurchases (ASRs) conduct downward earnings management prior to repurchase announcements. The ‘commitment’ and high ‘speed’ of share repurchases in ASRs appear to give ASR firms stronger incentive to deflate the pre-repurchase earnings than open market repurchase (OMR) firms, in order to reduce repurchase costs. However, in contrast to the OMRs of Gong, Louis, and Sun (2008), we do not find such earnings management for ASR firms. We conjecture that the Sarbanes–Oxley Act and greater public attention to financial reporting after financial scandals reduce the likelihood that ASR firms adopt accrual-based earnings management.

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  • Chiu, Yung-Chin & Liang, Woan-lih, 2015. "Do firms manipulate earnings before accelerated share repurchases?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 86-95.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:reveco:v:37:y:2015:i:c:p:86-95
    DOI: 10.1016/j.iref.2014.11.015
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    Cited by:

    1. Lin, Wen-Chun & Liao, Tsai-Ling, 2015. "Exchange listing type and firm financial reporting behavior," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 234-249.
    2. Olivier Guéant & Iuliia Manziuk & Jiang Pu, 2020. "Accelerated Share Repurchase and other buyback programs: what neural networks can bring," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-02987889, HAL.
    3. Olivier Gu'eant & Iuliia Manziuk & Jiang Pu, 2019. "Accelerated Share Repurchase and other buyback programs: what neural networks can bring," Papers 1907.09753, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2019.
    4. Andergassen, Rainer, 2016. "Managerial compensation, product market competition and fraud," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 1-15.
    5. Olivier Guéant & Iuliia Manziuk & Jiang Pu, 2020. "Accelerated Share Repurchase and other buyback programs: what neural networks can bring," Working Papers hal-02987889, HAL.
    6. Liu, Dehong & Lung, Pei Peter & Lallemand, Justin, 2015. "Anticipation of takeovers in stock and options markets," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 19-35.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Accelerated share repurchases; Open market repurchases; Earnings management; Sarbanes–Oxley Act;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General
    • G35 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Payout Policy

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