Earnings Management and the Revelation Principle

被引：21

作者：

Anil Arya

Jonathan Glover

Shyam Sunder

机构：

[1] The Ohio State University,Fisher College of Business

[2] Carnegie Mellon University,Graduate School of Industrial Administration

来源：

Review of Accounting Studies | 1998年 / 3卷 / 1-2期

关键词：

Field Data; Earning Management; Revelation Principle; Limited Commitment; Real Instrument;

D O I：

10.1023/A:1009631714430

中图分类号：

学科分类号：

摘要：

When the Revelation Principle (RP) holds, managing earnings confers no advantage over revelation. We construct an explanation for earnings management that is based on limitations on owners' ability to make commitments (a violation of the RP's assumptions). Traditionally, earnings management is seen as sneaky managers pulling the wool over the eyes of gullible owners by manipulating accruals; our limited commitment story suggests that the owners, too, can benefit from earnings management. We categorize a variety of extant explanations of earnings management, along with our own, according to which of the assumptions of the RP each explanation violates. Plausibility of multiple simultaneous violations of the assumptions, and strategic use of various accounting and real instruments of earnings management, complicate the task of detecting such management in field data.

引用

页码：7 / 34

页数：27

共 65 条

[21]

Dechow P.(1988)Incomplete Contracts and Renegotiation Econometrica 56 755-786

[22]

Sloan R.(1988)Contract Renegotiation and Coasian Dynamics The Review of Economic Studies 55 509-540

[23]

Sweeney A.(1985)Effect of Bonus Schemes on Accounting Decisions Journal of Accounting and Economics 7 85-107

[24]

DeFond M.(1953)Smoothing Periodic Income The Accounting Review 28 32-39

[25]

Park C.(1991)Moral Hazard and Verifiability: The Effects of Renegotiation in Agency Econometrica 59 1735-1753

[26]

Dye R.(1991)Earnings Management During Import Relief Investigations Journal of Accounting Research 29 193-228

[27]

Elliott J.(1986)Labor Union Contract Negotiations and Accounting Choices Accounting Review 61 692-712

[28]

Shaw W.(1991)Efficiency of Asset Valuation Rules Under Price Movement and Measurement Errors The Accounting Review 66 669-693

[29]

Evans J.(1995)Robust Inference in Communication Games with Partial Provability Journal of Economic Theory 66 370-405

[30]

Sridhar S.(1988)Earnings Expectations and Capital Restructuring: The Case of Equity-For-Debt Swaps Journal of Accounting Research 26 273-299

← 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 →