季度收入模式和盈余管理【外文翻译】
盈余管理的指标
盈余管理的指标盈余管理是企业财务管理中的重要一环，它通过合理的盈余分配和管理，为企业创造更多的价值和利润。
本文将从不同角度探讨盈余管理的指标，以人类视角进行阐述，使读者更好地理解和应用。
一、盈余收入率盈余收入率是衡量企业盈余管理效果的重要指标之一。
它表示企业在一定时期内实现的盈余收入与总收入的比例。
通过提高盈余收入率，企业可以增加利润，提高经济效益。
例如，企业可以通过降低成本、提高销售额等方式来增加盈余收入率，实现盈余最大化。
二、盈余分配比例盈余分配比例是企业盈余管理中的关键指标之一。
它表示企业将盈余分配给股东和留存盈余的比例。
盈余分配比例的合理选择可以平衡股东的利益和企业的发展需求。
例如，企业可以根据实际情况确定分红比例，既满足股东的利益诉求，又为企业留存足够的盈余用于扩大再投资。
三、盈余质量盈余质量是衡量企业盈余管理质量的重要指标之一。
它表示企业盈余的可靠性和稳定性。
高质量的盈余意味着企业能够持续获得稳定的盈利，并能够及时准确地反映企业的经营状况。
例如，企业可以通过加强内部控制、规范会计核算等方式提高盈余质量，减少盈余管理风险。
四、盈余增长率盈余增长率是衡量企业盈余管理效果的重要指标之一。
它表示企业盈余在一定时期内的增长速度。
通过提高盈余增长率，企业可以实现持续增长，增强市场竞争力。
例如，企业可以通过创新产品、拓展市场等方式提高盈余增长率，实现盈余增长和企业价值的双赢。
五、盈余现金流盈余现金流是企业盈余管理的重要指标之一。
它表示企业盈余的现金流入状况。
良好的盈余现金流可以保证企业的偿债能力和经营稳定性。
例如，企业可以通过优化资金运作、控制应收账款等方式提高盈余现金流，确保企业的经营活动正常运转。
盈余管理的指标是企业实现盈余最大化和价值创造的重要工具。
通过合理选择和运用这些指标，企业可以优化盈余管理，提高企业的经济效益和市场竞争力。
因此，企业应该重视盈余管理的指标，不断完善盈余管理体系，实现可持续发展。
盈余管理基本理论及其研究述评论文
盈余管理基本理论及其研究述评论文在学术界盈余管理(earningsmanagement)是一个有20年的研究话题什么是盈余管理?盈余管理产生的条件和动机有些?盈余管理研究包括些内容?盈余管理研究的有什么特点?盈余管理研究的未来方向在儿?所有这些都是我们在研究盈余管理时必须弄清楚的基本问题一、盈余管理的“经济收益观”与“信息观”在学术界盈余管理早期一般被理解为旨在有目的地干预对外财务报告过程以获取某些私人利益的“披露管理”(disclosuremanagement)对于这个定义以下几点需要引起我们特别的注意：1.把盈余管理限定在对外报告领域而把管理会计报告以及那些意在或改变公认会计原则的活动(如游说财务会计准则委员会)等排除在其讨论之外这样考虑的主要原因可能有两个：一是便于讨论如果将盈余管理仅限于对外报告领域在现行的公认会计原则和应计制下讨论“干预”问题则可以把对盈余管理的研究简化许多二是在1990年以前会计理论界对盈余管理的研究以对外财务报告为主尽管当时人们就注意到报酬方案(pensationschemes)和部门经理的私人信息是激励对内部管理会计报告进行操纵的潜在因素但很可能是由于资料难得这一领域的研究成果比较少见那一阶段比较多见的研究成果是盈余管理的技术应计制下的会计政策、会计选择与股票回报的关系等难怪戴维森等人在其所著的《会计：商业语言》中专辟一节讨论“会计戏法”(accountingmagic)问题并给盈余管理下了一个更加具体而狭义的定义：在公认会计原则限制的范围内为了把报告盈利调整到满意水平而采取有计划行动步骤的过程2.在这个定义中提出了盈余管理的主要目的是获取某些私人利益(privategain)这里所说的获取某些私人利益是与对外财务报告过程的中立性运作(neutraloperation)相对立的因为现代财务报告的核心思想之一就是中立性原则以及由此而来的财务报告的不偏不倚盈余管理实质上是背离了中立性原则由此造成对外财务报告有所偏重、有所倚靠盈余管理的出发点在局部利益、部分利益或某些人的利益它无疑会损害公众利益3.在定义盈余管理时并没有倚赖某一特定的盈利概念而是基于会计数据作为是信息的观点进行讨论的在这个定义中盈余管理在会计系统内经理可以透过在公认会计原则范围内的会计方法选择和将某些给定的方法用特别的方式加以运用(如改变折旧资产的服务年限)来控制盈利但事实上盈余管理可以存在于对外披露过程的任何一个环节也可以采用多种多样的形式例如融资决策、投资或生产决策(如研发费和广告费投放百分比的确定、生产线的增减、收购另一家公司)等都会影响企业某一期间的盈利这些因素对盈余管理的影响可看成是“实际的”盈余管理传统上人们认为盈余管理是与经济收益(有时也叫收益)有关的一个概念在经济收益观(economicineperspective)下有一些数据(譬如经济收益)被盈余管理故意地歪曲了经济收益之所以会被歪曲而成为会计的报告收益除了盈余管理外另一个影响因素是应计制会计和公认会计原则应计制会计和公认会计原则也将导致会计数据与收益有偏差当然经济收益只有在一定的条件下才能有意义地加以定义在现实的报告系统中是见不到的一般说来经济收益是看不见的即使如此在经济收益观下人们还是要把看不见的收益作为衡量偏差的基准我们认为以信息观(informationperspective)来看待盈余管理更有意义在信息观下盈利仅仅是许多用作决策和判断的信号中的一个信息观意味着会计数据的重要属性是其“信息含量”(informationcontent)这一统计特性盈余管理的信息观还假定公司经理拥有私人信息在一套既定的委托代理契约下公司经理不仅可以就会计程序作出选择而且还可以据此程序作出不同的估计但在信息观下人们并不需要作为价值的盈利概念与收益基准有关的计量偏差问题也不复存在数据的价值在经济收益观下至关重要但在信息现下则不再是第一位的属性了随着人们对盈余管理认识和的深入特别是同时从收益观和信息观两个角度来看待盈余管理盈余管理应当有一个更加全面和准确的概念根据以上我们认为：盈余管理是管理当局为了误导其他信息使用者对企业经营业绩的理解或那些基于会计数据的契约的结果在编报财务报告和“构造”交易事项以改变财务报告时作出判断和会计选择的过程二、盈余管理的基本特征对盈余管理基本特征的研究有助于把握盈余管理研究的和框架根据前面的讨论盈余管理的基本特性包括：1.从一个足够长的时段(最长也就是企业的整个生命期)来看盈余管理并不增加或减少企业实际的盈利但会改变企业实际盈利在不同的会计期间的反映和分布换句话说盈余管理影响的是会计数据尤其是会计中的报告盈利而不是企业的实际盈利会计的选择、会计方法的运用和会计估计的变动、会计方法的运用时点、交易事项发生时点的控制都是典型的盈余管理手段2.盈余管理必然会同时涉及经济收益和会计数据的信号作用这里所说的经济收益与上段提到的企业实际盈利并没有实质上的差别尽管人们并不知道企业究竟有多大的经济收益但盈余管理最终还是离不开经济收益这一基准更何况在盈余管理研究中人们已开始寻找某些指标如现金流量等并试图在某种意义和程度上来反映经济收益应当注意到无论是盈余管理在企业的实践还是盈余管理的研究都非常关心会计数据的信息含量和信号作用盈余管理所瞄准的方向正是会计数据的信息含量和信号作用关于盈余管理的“经济收益观”与“信息观”的地位和重要性在不同的国家由于证券市场的发达和完善程度差异较大而表现出不同的特点发达证券市场环境下的盈余管理人们考虑会计数据的信息含量和信号作用就会多一些其“信息观”的重要地位也更加明显些；相反欠发达证券市场环境下的盈余管理人们则容易拘泥于会计报告收益与经济收益或其它法规决定的收益之间的偏差其“经济收益观”的地位相应地更为突出3.盈余管理的主体是企业管理当局从现有的研究不难发现在盈余管理的每一幕“戏剧”中唱主角的无非是公司的经理、部门经理和董事会无论是会计方法的选择、会计方法的运用和会计估计的变动、会计方法的运用时点还是交易事项发生时点的控制最终的决定权都在他们手中当然会计人员也加入其中但应看作是配角在这里可以明确企业管理当局对盈余管理应当承担的责任4.盈余管理的客体主要是公认会计原则、会计方法和会计估计此外时间特别是时点的选择也是盈余管理的对象之一在研究盈余管理时我们必须同时具有时间和空间的观念公认会计原则会计方法和会计估计等属于盈余管理的空间因素；会计方法的运用时点和交易事项发生时点的控制则可看作是盈余管理的时间因素需要加以说明的是盈余管理最终的对象还是会计数据本身人们所说的盈余管理最终也就是在会计数据上作文章5.盈余管理的目的既明确又非常复杂所谓明确是指盈余管理的主要目的在于获取私人利益这点是可以充分加以肯定的盈余管理是与公众利益、中立性原则相矛盾的我们也应注意到盈余管理的目的又非常复杂谁是盈余管理的受益者?这里的情况比较复杂上面提到盈余管理的主体是企业管理当局盈余管理照顾的私人利益较多的情形是企业管理当局的利益如经理的分红、认股权以及晋升机会等在许多新闻报道和研究文献中我们常常看到的盈余管理的受害者一般都是股东、低层的雇员甚至包括政府例如丹斯基(J.Demski)的研究表明代理人可以通过盈余管理来传达其拥有的高超管理技能而实际上这些代理人可能并不具备会计报告盈利中所代表的管理技能阿亚等人(AryaA.GloverJ.S.Sunder)则发现盈余管理限制了委托人解雇代理人的倾向还可以减少委托人对于代理人正常工作的干预即使是企业管理当局的利益对每一个盈余管理的参与者来说也不是利益均沾的当然盈余管理有时也照顾某些股东的利益盈余管理的利益表现形式也十分复杂有的是直接的利益如经理人员分红的增加有的是间接的利益如职位晋升、股价飙升数据的信号作用也常常表现在这里有的是立竿见影的有的则要潜伏很长的时期正是由于盈余管理的目的既明确又非常复杂因此大众传播媒介普遍认为盈余管理是件坏事它们还比较喜欢采用盈利操纵(earningsmanipulation)的概念；而机会主义的管理者则认为盈余管理是一个中性的概念会计学术界的许多也持这种观点三、“契约磨擦”与“沟通磨擦”在现实里可以见到许多盈余管理的激励因素有的属管理激励有的是成本激励或其它激励在管理激励中既有分红和晋升的诱惑又有被解除职位的压力在政治成本激励中有许多针对政府管制而进行的盈余管理此外盈余管理还可被用作是资劳双方讨价还价的工具在某些特定的条件下盈余管理也很有吸引力正因为如此才有所谓以股利为基础的盈余管理、以节税为目的的盈余管理、困境的盈余管理、运用盈余管理进行风险管理、公司首次公开募股(IPO)时的盈余管理等等盈余管理也有许多阻碍的因素注册会计师审计、证券交易监管机构的监管、税务稽查和股东大会等都在一定程度上阻碍和限制了盈余管理的泛滥但上述限制因素往往也受到成本效益原则的限制因此从整体而言盈余管理的激励因素要比阻碍因素强势得多在世界各国几乎每天都能听到公司上调或调低盈利虚报营业收益的故事例如美国在线公司为开发潜在客户群给客户赠送磁碟之后将所有发生的费用资本化；而微软公司则被指控通过递延确认实际所得收入来下调盈利在这方面我国也有数不尽的例子会计“打假”始终效果不明显说明大家还是不怕盈余管理还是有很多激励因素的在会计报告系统中留有许多盈余管理的机会公认会计原则还存在不少局限性美国证券交易委员会主席雷维特(A.Levitt)1998年就曾在纽约大学与商学中心发表过题为“数字游戏”(numbergames)的演讲猛烈批评某些低质量的会计准则应计制会计中的预计、摊销等都很容易被利用作盈余管理同时不确定的经济交易和会计事项也越来越多对这些不确定经济交易和会计事项的正确判断也越来越困难在现代公司治理结构中也为管理当局进行盈余管理提供了一些条件例如现行的委托人与代理人之间的契约股东会、董事长与经理之间相互关系的制度规范仍存在许多不完善的地方盈余管理乘虚而入也就见怪不怪了通过深入的研究一些会计学家进一步得出了盈余管理产生的两个基本条件：一个是契约磨擦(contractingfrictions)；另一个是沟通磨擦(municationfrictions)如果委托人与代理人之间没有契约磨擦他们之间的沟通也完全透明的委托人可以掌握并使用充分信息盈余管理也就不可能发生在委托代理关系的模型中人们常常事先设定一套管理契约和报告规则事实上无论是管理契约还是报告规则都面临随着经济和企业情况变化而变化的压力但是由于管理契约和报告规则通常被看作是固定的、僵化的(即使有变化也还是跟不上经济和企业情况变化的步伐)会与现实的需要产生矛盾因此盈余管理便应运而生在这里盈余管理常被用来解决由于管理契约和报告规则与现实情形发生磨擦所引起的而管理契约和报告规则就成为盈余管理问题存在的内生变量仅仅用契约磨擦是无法完全解释盈余管理的产生与存在的人们之所以无法消除盈余管理是因为信息不对称(asymmetricinformation)最典型的是经理知道的东西包括股东在内的其他人并不一定知道信息不对称阻碍了信息交流和沟通经理也就不可能把他所掌握的全部私人信息传递出去当然有一些信息传播是被法律禁止的正是有了沟通磨擦企业管理当局才会在盈余管理中大有作为需要说明契约安排的修正并不能完全消除沟通磨擦但是如果经理把所有的私人信息都传递出去并且又不会增加成本可以预期契约的安排将朝着有利于鼓励地披露信息的方向由此可见沟通磨擦比契约磨擦对于理解盈余管理生存的条件还更有意义通过和以上解释盈余管理生存的两个基本条件可以初步得出以下结论：1.盈余管理是研究中的一个重要课题但盈余管理本身并不完全是一个会计无论从其生存条件还是从其主体看盈余管理涉及一系列的管理甚至问题委托人与代理人契约的确立、修正和实施信息不对称都是经济学和管中的重要研究也是经济管理面临的棘手问题2.盈余管理的存在有其特定的背景和条件在现代市场经济中可以预见人们不可能完全解决契约磨擦和沟通磨擦的问题尤其是在信息交流方面代理人永远都会拥有一部分私人信息这些信息永远都不可能被委托人或其他会计信息使用者完全知晓因为不允许这样做成本效益原则也不赞成这样做技术上也还存在问题因此盈余管理将会继续存在下去透过法律、规则和人力是不可能把它完全消除的除非市场经济也不再存在了3.既然在市场经济环境中无法透过法律、规则和人力去消除盈余管理问题那么我们就应当对盈余管理的客观存在有一个的观念和正确的认识用平静的心态对待它既不能让它放任自流也不可能完全杜绝要达成这种共识投资者等委托人以及会计信息的其他使用者也要有这种认识从社会的角度讲政府和有关社会团体有责任营造良好的市场环境特别是有效的资本市场和证券市场制定和完善规范会计报告的相关法律、制度和公认会计原则加强外部监管从的角度看有关方面(如投资者、经营管理者等)要尽可能签订完善的契约、合同代理人要树立正确的商业伦理道德依法经营、道德管理此外委托人以及会计信息的其他使用者还有必要掌握识别盈余管理的知识和技能能根据其特定的决策需要对会计数据或报告盈利作出适当的调整四、盈余管理实证研究及其深远在盈余管理研究的大量中可以将它们粗略地分成三大类一是收益平滑对收益平滑的研究着重于降低不同时期盈利的起伏主要目的是方便未来盈利的预测并减小市场风险二是基于契约观点(contractingview)的盈余管理研究发现有的契约是以会计数据为基础的而另外一些则与会计信息有着隐含的联系其中前者即显现契约(explicitcontracts)有管理报酬计划、债务协议、税收和管制等在研究中一般都发现了上述契约影响盈余管理的支持证据与会计数据间接有关的契约还包括劳资合同、代理人竞争和主管的变动、审计合约、对外募股、公司治理制度等与第一类契约相比这些契约与盈余管理的关系则要复杂得多三是计量问题学术界对盈余管理的研究大都采用实证研究的方法在盈余管理的实证研究中要解决的主要问题包括两个大的方面：一方面将盈利区分为操纵过的和没有操纵过的部分一般说来公司的报告盈利由现金流量和对现金流量的会计调整两部分组成后者称之为应计部分(accruals)总体应计部分可进一步拆分为非主观应计部分(nondiscretionaryaccruals)和主观应计部分(discretionaryaccruals)在这里要说明一下非主观应计部分和主观应计部分两个概念其中非主观应计部分秉承了创造应计会计的原本目的即提高会计信息的质量使之能够更加准确地反映企业在特定时点的财务状况和特定时期的财务成果因此非主观应计部分是在尊重客观经济现实的前提下对由于现金收付时点与交易事项发生时点不一致这一时差所产生的影响进行调整这种调整是相对客观的强调的是尊重客观经济现实是在公认会计原则的约束范围内完成的与非主观应计部分相对应主观应计部分则是企业基于特定私人利益目的在某一或某些特定时期通过对经济交易的刻意安排和财务报告的刻意调整创造出符合其需要的报告盈利这种调整可以利用公认会计原则的弹性在公认会计原则约束范围内完成但也可能超出公认会计原则的框架在对盈余管理的实证研究中有四种主要模型以及以它们为基础的改进或衍生模型被较为广泛的采用以度量主观应计部分这四种模型分别是希利模型(Healymodel)、迪安龙模型(DeAngelomodel)、琼斯模型(Jonesmodel)和行业模型(industrymodel)这四种模型的核心均在于对非主观应计部分的假设或处理上在希利模型和迪安戈模型中非主观应计部分从总体上看被假定为在各个考察期间保持不变进而借由对比总体应计部分来判断样本在特定期间是否存在主观应计部分琼斯模型和行业模型则释放了非主观应计部分在各个考察期间保持不变的假定借助较长的时间序列或大容量的行业配对样本运用多元线性回归等统计工具计量非主观应计部分是较为复杂但更精确的计量模型另一方面对盈余管理的种种情形进行解释例如有的被解释为管理激励引起的盈余管理在管理激励引起的盈余管理中又有多种具体的解释如报酬契约、代理人竞争和债务契约等有的被解释为成本激励引起的盈余管理在政治成本激励引起的盈余管理中也存在多种多样的具体情况如院外游说、政府管制甚至劳资谈判此外还有其它一些特殊的解释如以股利为基础的盈余管理以节税为目的的盈余管理、困境的盈余管理、运用盈余管理进行风险管理、IPO过程的盈余管理等等在过去的20年间有一大批盈余管理的实证成果发表盈余管理的实证研究不仅对实务和公认会计原则的制订产生了深远的而且还大大地促进了会计及其研究的其意义主要有：1.盈余管理的实证研究加深了人们对应计制会计的认识对现金流量表的推广起到了极大的作用“现金为王”(cashisking)的观念在工商管理界非常普遍现金流量表和“现金为王”的观念为什么会在80年代末期开始流行开来有其特定的背景但也与盈余管理的实证研究密切相关因为通过研究发现了大量的人为地操纵盈利的行为会计数据成为数字游戏通过研究还发现了操纵盈利的行为主要是来自企业管理当局对应计制会计的局限性的过分利用钻了很多应计制会计的空子在这些研究的基础上人们将现金收付制发展成现金流量基础(cashbasis)2.盈余管理的实证研究加速了公认会计原则的完善和发展尤其是表现在增加对外财务报告的透明度方面前面谈到沟通磨擦是盈余管理生存的重要条件之一为什么会有沟通磨擦原因在于信息不对称代理人知道的很多信息委托人可能知之甚少要改善这个增加对外财务报告的透明度是必不可少的近年来各国公认会计原则和国际会计准则的修订、新准则的立项和制订都是朝着这一方向发展的3.盈余管理的实证研究不仅自身成为现代会计理论研究的重要组成部分而且还大大促进了现代会计理论及其研究方法的发展据《会计与经济学杂志》(JournalofAccountingandEconomics)1997年所做的一项统计发表在该杂志上有关“契约”话题的论文19791986、19871991、19921996年间总共分别为28、25和49篇占该杂志同期发表论文总数的35%、29%和48%在这些有关契约话题的论文中直接采用实证方法研究管理报酬(managementpensation)契约的就分别有11、4和12篇由此可见盈余管理实证研究本身就在现代会计理论研究中占有重要的地位盈余管理的实证研究也促进了会计与资本市场、审计、盈利预测、行为会计以及所得税会计等领域的研究盈余管理的实证研究还对公司治理结构的完善、组织行为与控制、绩效评估与报酬计划、证券市场监管等一系列理论与实务问题的解决提供了重要的依据会计学术界对盈余管理的研究已取得了很大的进展但也还存在不少问题其中最为主要的问题是：各种各样的盈余管理实证研究的结果迄今还有非常大的差别主要原因有：盈余管理实证研究中采用了不够严密的方法将盈利划分为操纵过的和没有操纵的部分；对盈余管理的大多数实证研究都只限于某一时期或某一项目；对盈余管理的解释太狭义；代理人隐瞒其操纵盈利的手法不利于收集盈余管理实证研究所需的数据；委托人自愿让代理人隐瞒信息；盈余管理很可能是由两个或多个因素导致的大多数的实证研究只着重于一个因素研究结果当然不够理想可以预期未来的盈余管理研究不仅要进一步解决以上问题而且还要特别注意研究盈余管理对股价和资源配置的影响。
德国公认会计准则与国际财务报告准则下的盈余管理【外文翻译】
本科毕业论文（设计）外文翻译外文题目Earnings Management under German GAAP versus IFRS 外文出处 European Accounting Review外文作者 Tendeloo, B.V., and Vanstraelen, A原文：Earnings Management under German GAAP versus IFRS AbstractThis paper addresses the question whether voluntary adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is associated with lower earnings management. Ball et al. (Journal of Accounting and Economics, 36(1–3), pp. 235–270, 2003) argue that adopting high quality standards might be a necessary condition for high quality information, but not necessarily a sufficient one. In Germany, a code-law country with low investor protection rights, a relatively large number of companies have chosen to voluntarily adopt IFRS prior to 2005. We investigate whether German companies that have adopted IFRS engage significantly less in earnings management compared to German companies reporting under German generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), while controlling for other differences in earnings management incentives. Our sample, consisting of German listed companies, contains 636 firm-year observations relating to the period 1999–2001. Our results suggest that IFRS-adopters do not present different earnings management behavior compared to companies reporting under German GAAP. These findings contribute to the current debate on whether high quality standards are sufficient and effective in countries with weak investor protection rights. They indicate that voluntary adopters of IFRS in Germany cannot be associated with lower earnings management.1. IntroductionThe International Accounting Standards (IAS), now renamed as International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), have been developed to harmonize corporate accounting practice and to answer the need for high quality standards to be adopted inthe world’s major capital markets.Ball et al. (2003) argue that adopting high quality standards might be a necessary condition for high quality information, but not necessarily a sufficient one. This paper contributes to this debate by examining whether the adoption of high quality standards like IFRS is associated with high financial reporting quality. In particular, we question whether IFRS a re sufficient to override managers’ incentives to engage in earnings management and affect the quality of reported earnings.Previous research provides evidence that the magnitude of earnings management is on average higher in code-law countries with low investor protection rights, compared to common-law countries with high investor protection rights (Leuz et al., 2003). Hence, to assess whether firms that report under IFRS can be associated with higher earnings quality we focus on Germany, which is a code-law country with relatively low investor protection rights (La Portal et al.,2000). Moreover, a relatively large number of German companies have already voluntarily chosen to adopt IFRS prior to 2005. This allows a comparison between companies that have adopted IFRS versus companies that report under domestic generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).The results of our research show that IFRS do not impose a significant constraint on earnings management, as measured by discretionary accruals. On the contrary, adopting IFRS seems to increase the magnitude of discretionary accruals. Our results further suggest that companies that have adopted IFRS engage more in earnings smoothing, although this effect is significantly reduced when the company has a Big 4 auditor. However, hidden reserves, which are allowed under German GAAP to manage earnings, are not entirely picked up by the traditional accruals measures. When hidden reserves are taken into consideration, our results show that IFRS-adopters do not present different earnings management behavior compared to companies reporting under German GAAP. Hence, our results indicate that adopters of IFRS cannot be associated with lower earnings management. This finding suggests that the adoption of high quality standards is not a sufficient condition for providing high quality information in code-law countries with low investor protection rights.The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we review the relevant literature and provide the theoretical background of the paper. Section 3 provides an overview of the German accounting system. In Section 4, we formulate the research hypotheses. Section 5 describes the research design. The results of thestudy are presented in Section 6. Finally, in Section 7, we summarize our results, discuss the implications and limitations of our analysis and give suggestions for further research.2. Previous Literature2.1. Adoption of International Accounting StandardsThe International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC), which was established in 1973 and now renamed as the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), aims to achieve uniformity in the accounting standards used by businesses and other organizations for financial reporting around the world (IASB website). The benefits of the adoption of international accounting standards are considered to be the following. First, it should improve the ability of investors to make informed financial decisions and eliminate confusion arising from different measures of financial position and performance across countries, thereby leading to a reduced risk for investors and a lower cost of capital for companies. Second, it should lower costs arising from multiple reporting. Third, it should encourage international investment. Finally, it should lead to amore efficient allocation of savings worldwide (Street et al., 1999).The original International Accounting Standards were mostly descriptive in nature and contained many alternative treatments. Because of this flexibility and a continuing lack of comparability across countries, the standards came under heavy criticism in the late 1980s. In response to this criticism, the IASC started the Comparability Project in 1987. The revised standards, which became effective in 1995, substantially reduced the alternative treatments and increased the disclosure requirements (Nobes, 2002). In July 1995, the IASC and the International Organization of Securities Commission (IOSCO) agreed to a list of accounting issues that needed to be addressed for obtaining IOSCO’s endorsement of the standards. The subsequent Core Standards Project led again to substantial revisions of IAS. In May 2000, the IASC received IOSCO’s endorsement subject to ‘reconciliation where necessary to address subst antive outstanding issues at a national or regional level’ (IOSCO Press Release, 17 May 2000). The Core Standards Project has brought a wider recognition to IAS around the world. For example, the European Parliament has issued a regulation (1606/2002/EC) requiring all EU listed companies to prepare consolidated financial statements based on InternationalAccounting Standards by 2005. In a number of countries, including Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italyand Switzerland, companies were already permitted to prepare consolidated financial statements under IFRS (or US GAAP) prior to 2005.Since German accounting standards and disclosure practices have been criticized in the investor community (Leuz and Verrechia, 2000), a relatively large number of German firms have adopted international accounting standards such as IFRS or US GAAP. This switch is thought to represent a substantial commitment to transparent financial reporting for the following two reasons. First, IFRS adoption itself might effectively enhance financial reporting quality. Second, firms which adopt IFRS or US GAAP might do so because they have higher incentives to report transparently, such as high financing needs. In this case, IFRS serves as a proxy for a credible commitment to higher quality accounting. A study conducted by Dumontier and Raffournier (1998) with Swiss data reveals that early adopters of IFRS ‘are larger, more internationally diversified, less capital intensive and have a more diffuse ownership’. They argue that the decision t o apply IFRS is primarily influenced by political costs and pressures from outside markets. Murphy (1999) also used Swiss data to study the determinants of the adoption of IFRS. She found that companies that adopt IFRS have a higher percentage of foreign sales and a higher number of foreign exchange listings. El-Gazzar et al. (1999) found the same relationships using data from various countries. In addition, they concluded that being domiciled in an EU country and having a lower debt to equity ratio is positively associated with the adoption of IFRS. Other determinants of the adoption of international standards mentioned in the literature include a high profitability, the issuance of equity during the year of adoption, domestic GAAP differing significantly from IFRS or US GAAP and, related to the latter, being domiciled in a country with a bank-oriented financial system (Ashbaugh, 2001; Cuijpers and Buijink, 2003).Not all companies that seek the international investment status that comes with the adoption of IFRS are, however, willing to fulfill all of the requirements and obligations involved. According to a study by Street and Gray (2002) there is a significant non-compliance with IFRS in 1998 company reports, especially in the case of IFRS disclosure requirements. With the revision of IAS 1, effective for financial statements covering periods beginning on or after 1 July 1998, financial statements are prohibited from noting compliance with International Accounting Standards ‘unless they comply with all the requirements of each applicable Standard and each applicable Interpretation of the Standing Interpretations Committee’.All companies included in our IFRS sample mention IFRS compliance in their financial statements after the revised IAS 1 became effective. Nevertheless, adopters of IFRS that appear to be fully compliant might as well be falsely signaling to be of high quality. Ball et al. (2000) argue that firms’ incentives to comply with accounting standards depend on the penalties assessed for non-compliance.When costs of complying to IFRS are viewed to exceed the costs of noncompliance, substantial non-compliance will continue to be a problem. While the main objective of adopting IFRS is considered to be enhancing the quality of the information provided in the financial statements, Ball et al. (2003) further suggest that adopting high quality standards might be a necessary condition for high quality information but not a sufficient condition. If the adoption of IFRS cannot be associated with significantly higher financial reporting quality, IFRS adoption cannot serve as a signaling instrument for a credible commitment to higher quality accounting. This study addresses this issue empirically.2.2. Earnings Management: Incentives and ConstraintsOne way of assessing the quality of reported earnings is examining to what extent earnings are managed, with the intention to ‘either mislead some stakeholders about the underlying economic performance of the company or to influence contractual outcomes that depend o n reported accounting numbers’ (Healy and Wahlen, 1999). Incentives for earnings management, either through accounting decisions or structuring transactions, are ample. Managers may be inclined to manage earnings due to the existence of explicit and implic it contracts, the firm’s relation with capital markets, the need for external financing, the political and regulatory environment or several other specific circumstances (Vander Bauwhede, 2001).A number of studies suggest that the quality of reported financial statement information is in large part determined by the underlying economic and institutional factors influencing managers’ and auditors’ incentives. According to Ball et al. (2000) the demand for accounting income differs systematically between common-law and code-law countries. In common-law countries, which are characterized by arm’s length debt and equity markets, a diverse base of investors, high risk of litigation and strong investor protection, accounting information is designed to meet the needs of investors. In code-law countries, capital markets are less active. Investor protection is weak, litigation rates are lower and companies are more financed by banks, other financial institutions and the government, which results in less need for publicdisclosure. Accounting information is therefore designed more to meet other demands, including reduction in political costs and determination of income tax and dividend payments (Ball et al., 2000; La Portaet al., 2000). Leuz et al. (2003) show that earnings management is more prevalent in code-law countries compared to common-law countries. The benefits (e.g.enhanced liquidity) of engaging in earnings management appear to outweigh the costs (e.g. litigation) more in countries with weak investor protection rights. Firms which adopt IFRS, however, can be expected to have incentives to report investor-oriented information and thus engage significantly less in earnings management than non-adopters. On the other hand, low enforcement and low litigation risk might encourage low quality firms to falsely signal to be of high quality by adopting IFRS. This study addresses the question whether adoption of IFRS is associated with lower earnings management in Germany, which La Porta et al. (2000) classify as a country with low investor protection rights.Accounting rules can limit a manager’s ability to distort reported earnings. But the extent to which accounting rules influence reported earnings and curb earnings management depends on how well these rules are enforced (Leuz et al., 2003). Apart from clear accounting standards, strong investor and creditor protection requires a statutory audit, monitoring by supervisors and effective sanctions.A number of studies have shown that Big 4 auditors constitute a constraint on earnings management (DeFond and Jiambalvo, 1991, 1994; Becker et al., 1998; Francis et al., 1999; Gore et al., 2001). However, the results of Maijoor and Vanstraelen (2002) and Francis and Wang (2003) document that the constraint constituted by a Big 4 auditor on earnings management is not uniform across countries. Street and Gray (2002) find support for the fact that being audited by a large audit firm is also positively associated with IFRS compliance, both in the case of disclosure requirements as in the case of measurement and presentation requirements. In this respect, we question whether adoption of IFRS by a company has a stronger effect on the quality of earnings of that company when audited by a Big 4 audit firm.Source: Tendeloo, B.V. and Vanstraelen, A. Earnings management under German GAAP versus IFRS [J]. European Accounting Review, 2005, 14(1): 155-180.译文：德国公认会计准则与国际财务报告准则下的盈余管理摘要：这篇论文阐述的问题是盈余管理的降低是否与国际财务报告准则（IFRS）的自愿采用有关。
5赵余兵-外文翻译
盈余管理与公司业绩盈余管理与企业绩效有趣的是，协会之间的预回购异常预提费用及回购后性能出现将在很大程度上推动这些公司的报告中最购回前的负异常应计。
这些结果是一致的路易斯（2004）的论点，因为盈利的复杂性管理和遵守一定的管理行为，投资者的困难可能会感到惊讶实现增长时低于或超过操纵收益数字的基础上形成的期望。
随后的分析也表明，一旦我们控制的效果再回购的盈余管理，是没有证据显示性能的提高，和回购之间呈显着负相关性能和预回购异常预提费用基本上消失。
这种额外的证据进一步支持了我们的猜想，采购后优越的性能，至少部分是由于前回购盈余管理。
研究的其余部分安排如下：下一节将讨论相关的研究和我们的动力。
第二节介绍我们的变量的测量的过程。
第三节介绍样本选择过程。
第四节后回购的性能进行了分析。
第五节分析的证据回购前盈余管理。
第六节分析之间的关联购买前盈余管理和回购后的表现。
这项研究的结论在第七节。
相关的研究和动机谎言（2005）认为，公司报告经营效益显着改善相对公开市场回购公告后他们的同龄人。
他推断，经理启动股票回购计划时，他们期望未来的经营业绩是资本市场的预期。
我们猜想，回购后改善报告的经营业绩也有可能被下调盈利预回购管理驱动。
我们假定经理人进行回购的目的是可能有奖励办法，以减少回购价格。
扣除回购价格有效地转移股东财富卖出（即离开股东）（即那些将他们的股份持有其余股东）。
这种财富转移管理者受益，因为他们的利益更容易被其余的对齐在企业，事业的关注，他们的股权的股东通过将来的赔偿。
经理涉嫌操纵股票价格的方法之一是通过“盈利管理“（见，例如，希利和Wahlen的（1999））。
因此，我们主张经理们可能会使用他们的报告酌情紧缩股价之前公开市场回购。
财经杂志经理必须在其财务的自由裁量权，因为在目前的会计准则所提供的灵活性报告。
例如，现行的会计规则往往提供酌情经理关于如何核算交易和/或估计未变现收益或损失。
因此，经理人的机会主义行事，可以使用他们的报告可酌情暂时扣除收入减少的回购价格在季度和/或回购公告之前的季度。
[设计]盈余管理动因与手段分析
![[设计]盈余管理动因与手段分析](https://img.taocdn.com/s3/m/c70bb5a868dc5022aaea998fcc22bcd127ff4258.png)
盈余管理动因与手段分析一、盈余管理定义简要回顾企业盈余从经济学角度是指企业财富的增加，即投入资源的价值小于产出的价值；从会计学的角度是指期末净资产大于期初净资产的差额。
由于产生差额的原因往往是企业经营获得利润，所以人们也常常把利润作为盈余看待。
企业盈余管理出现在19世纪，是从早期创造性会计（Creating accounting）演变而来的。
最初表现为利润平滑（Income smoothing），后来则是秘密准备(Secret reserver)。
随着会计准则和会计法规的不断完善，在国内外逐步形成了盈余管理的理论与事务。
加拿大会计学者思考特（Scott）认为盈余管理是企业管理人员在会计政策选择时选择使企业价值最大化的会计政策。
美国著名会计学者富柏（Schippes）在“盈余管理的评论”（1989）一文中认为，盈余管理是企业管理人员为了获取私利，从而有目的的干预对外财务会计报告的一种管理行为，称为“披露管理”（disclosure management）。
美国哈佛大学教授赫雷（Hearly）与美国印第安那大学倭林(Wahlen)在1999年认为，盈余管理就是企业管理当局为了自身利益在编制公司财务会计报告和进行业务交易时，主观上判断选择有利于企业的会计政策和方法、变更会计估计、安排交易发生的时间和方式以期改变报告披露的内容与事实。
在信息的不对称和披露不完全的条件下，误导公司报表使用者对企业收益状况的理解。
我国学者魏明海认为盈余管理是企业管理当局为了误导信息使用者对会计经营业绩的理解，在编制财务报告和构造交易事件以改变财务报告时做出的判断和会计选择过程。
从以上定义回顾看出，目前对盈余管理的定义尚未形成共识，有许多学者对盈余管理作了详尽的探讨，因此本文对盈余管理定义不作探讨。
本文拟通过对盈余管理动因和手段的分析入手，谈对盈余管理性质的认识。
二、盈余管理的动因（一）奖金动因赫雷（Hearly，1985）发表了一片名为《奖金计划对会计决策的影响》（The Effect of Bonus Schemes On Accounting Decision）的文章对盈余管理的动因进行了著名的实证研究。
第五章 营运资金管理与盈余管理
⑵经济订货量
①基本模型 经济订货量 Q*
最佳订货周期
*
2 KD Kc
最佳订货次数
2K DK c
N*
DK c 2K
T 360
经济订货量占用资金 I * KD ) U （
2Kc
最低存货总成本 TC* 2KDKc ②存货边补充边消耗情况下的经济订货量 ③数量折扣条件下的经济订货量 ④考虑安全储备量的经济订货量
易出现过度增长。——因其更需要事先垫付营运资金（较
高的存货、应收帐款）。
10
营运资金管理的基本要求
营运资金管理重点：保证企业能够按时按量地 偿付各种到期债务，为企业的日常生产经营活动提 供足够的资金，使企业不致出现资金调度失衡、资 金运用捉襟见肘的窘境。 一般做法：
1、合理确定企业营运资金的占用数量。——经营状况、 环境、经验。 2、合理确定短期资金的来源构成。——资金收支状况， 偿债能力。 3、加快资金周转，提高资金的利用效果。——加速存货 周转，缩短应收帐款周期（注意对销售额的影响），延长应
付帐款付款周期（注意对企业偿债信誉的影响）。
11
二、流动资产种类与特征
现金 短期有价证券 应收帐款 存货
12
（一）现金
包括库存现金与银行存款。是企业现实支付
能力与偿债能力的体现。 使用方便、快捷，但会发生保管费用（现 金保管箱租赁费，银行存款虽有少量利息，但 支付受到一定限制）。
持有则形成资源浪费，不持有则可能造成
＝21÷180×365 ＝43；
应收帐款周转期 ＝（应收帐款平均余额÷销售收入）×365 ＝47÷250×365 ＝69； 应付帐款周转期 ＝（应付帐款平均余额÷原材料采购量）×365 ＝14÷67×365 ＝76。 生产经营周期＝（67＋20 ＋43 ）＋69 ＝199 营运资金周转期 ＝199－76＝123（天）
盈余管理和盈利质量外文文献及翻译
盈余管理和盈利质量外文文献及翻译摘要从犯罪现场调查员的视角来看盈余管理的检测，启蒙了早期对盈余管理的研究和它的近亲：盈利质量。
Ball和Shivakumar的著作（2008在会计和经济学杂志上出版的《首次公开发行时的盈利质量》）和Teoh et al .的著作(1998在金融杂志53期上刊登的《盈利管理和首次公开发行后的市场表现》)被用来阐释将犯罪现场调查的七个部分应用于盈利管理的研究。
关键词:市场效率盈余管理盈利质量会计欺诈1、引言在诸多会计和金融的研究课题中,可能没有比盈余管理更具有刺激性的议题。
为什么?我认为这是因为这个主题明确涉及了潜在的不法行为、恶作剧、冲突、间谍活动以及一种神秘感。
正如Healy和Wahlen在1999年(Schipper在1989也下过类似的定义)定义道:“盈余管理的发生是在管理者针对财务报表和交易建立，运用判断力来改变财务报告之时。
盈余管理要么会在公司潜在的经营表现上误导一些利益相关者，要么影响合同结果，这取决于会计报告数字。
”简而言之，有人做伤害别人的事情。
审计人员、监管机构、投资者和研究者们试图找到这些违法者并解开这个谜团,而这个谜团可能会演变成涉及欺诈(或犯罪,在此使用解决犯罪谜团的隐喻)的事件。
如果我们将盈余管理看成是一个潜在的欺诈性(犯罪性)活动,那么我们可以在利用比解决神秘谋杀案的福尔摩斯,或犯罪现场调查(CSI)更现代的条件下，考虑对盈余管理的探查。
这样的调查涉及到以下七个要素：一场犯罪是否已经实施，嫌疑人的责任，使用的凶器,犯罪活动的受害者,犯罪的动机，开展行动的机会和替代性解释。
替代性解释是指除了欺诈或犯罪活动，整个事件的起因。
这个起因能够证实在目击证据的基础上得出欺诈或犯罪的结论将是错误的。
我在讨论破解盈余管理的谜团的各种要素时，所举的例子主要来自Ball和Shivakumar(2008)和Teoh et al.(1998)。
(这些要素显然是相互关联的,以下的讨论中也有一些不可避免的重复)。
盈余管理(Earning Management)就是企业管理
盈余管理(Earning Management)就是企业管理盈余管理。
盈余管理就是企业管理当局在遵循会计准则的基础上。
通过对企业对外报告的会计收益信息进行控制或调整。
以达到主体自身利益最大化的行为。
中文名,盈余管理。
目的,达到主体自身利益最大化的行为。
基础,企业管理当局在遵循会计准则。
广泛研究,国外经济学和会计学。
概念。
盈余管理是目前国外经济学和会计学广泛研究的课题。
对盈余管理的概念会计学界存在着诸多不同意见。
从以下两个权威性的定义可以看出盈余管理的基本涵义。
一是美国会计学家斯考特认为。
盈余管理是指"在GAAP允许的范围内。
通过对会计政策的选择使经营者自身利益或企业市场价值达到最大化的行为。
另一方面是美国会计学家凯瑟琳·雪珀认为。
盈余管理实际上是企业管理人员通过有目的地控制对外财务报告过程。
以获取某些私人利益的"披露管理"。
根据以上两个权威性的定义。
可以看出。
盈余管理主要具备这样一些涵义：第一。
盈余管理的主体是企业管理当局。
它包括经理人员和董事会。
尽管经理人员和董事会进行盈余管理的动机并不完全一致。
但他们对企业会计政策和对外报告盈余都有重大影响。
企业盈余信息的披露由他们各自作用的合力所决定。
第二。
盈余管理的客体是企业对外报告的盈余信息%20。
在雪珀的定义中。
盈余管理不仅仅指对会计收益的调整和控制。
而且包括对其他会计信息的披露的管理。
但是对会计收益以外的财务数据的操纵并不具有普遍的意义。
它所具有的经济后果相对而言要小得多。
如果将其纳入盈余管理的范畴反而会影响对盈余管理本质的把握。
第三。
盈余管理的方法是在GAAP允许的范围内综合运用会计和非会计手段来实现对会计收益的控制和调整。
它主要包括会计政策的选用。
应计项目的管理。
交易时间的改变。
交易的创造等。
第四。
盈余管理的目的是盈余管理主体自身利益的最大化。
其中又包括管理人员自身利益的最大化和董事会成员所代表的股东利益的最大化。
00-2011-讲义07-盈余管理与会计信息披露质量
Earnings Management and Quality of Financial Reporting
盈余管理与财务报告质量
McGraw-Hill/Irwin Copyright © 2008 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
何谓盈余管理？ 何谓盈余管理？ What is earnings management?
• 关于“盈余管理”，并没有一个广为人 关于“盈余管理” 们接受的定义，不过， 们接受的定义，不过，人们对盈余管理 的最终后果达成共识， 的最终后果达成共识，即“盈余管理将 会曲解公认会计准则， 会曲解公认会计准则，因而影响到盈余 的质量” 的质量”
经理人与会计人员如何看待盈余管理
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 将残次品成本列入“其他费用”，因而不对经营收入产生影响 要求供应商推后收款（开票）时间 将材料采购的退货率估计（预期）从22%提高到35%（当前实际退货率为 22%） 给顾客的交货期提前42天 通过推迟将进货发票入账，来推后（采购业务中发生的）供应商费用 减少为技术淘汰计提的准备，以完成预算目标 增加为技术淘汰计提的准备，以降低收益 给顾客的交货期提前28天 将一些费用递延，以完成本年度预算目标 给顾客的交货期提前16天 减少为技术淘汰计提的准备，使得工作接续下去 将一些费用递延，以完成本季度预算目标 预付6万美元的费用，从而降低当期收益
Schipper (1989) Healy & Wahlen (1999) Dechow & Skinner(2000)
•
Fine line between 需要区分：
内部治理结构与盈余管理外文文献及翻译
内部治理结构与盈余管理本文探讨了公司的内部治理结构对盈余管理的约束作用。
这是假设盈余管理系统地涉及到公司内部治理机制的各个方面的前提下进行的研究，研究包括董事会的力量，审计委员会，内部审计职能的变化与外部审计师的选择四个方面。
基于横截面模型以2000年末在澳大利亚上市的434家公司为样本，将可控性应计利润作为衡量盈余管理的水平，发现董事会及审计委员会的非执行董事的人数越多盈余管理的可能性越低。
内部审计职能和审计机构的选择与盈余管理没有显著的相关性。
我们进一步分析还发现，利用收入的增加作为盈余管理的替代变量时，盈余管理和审计委员会的存在具有负相关关系。
关键词：审计委员会；公司治理；盈余管理；内部审计职能1 前言最近在澳大利亚及海外的操纵会计行为的案件表明公司治理机制的重要性，强有力的公司治理涉及到与公司绩效水平监测的一个适当的平衡(Cadbury,1997)。
在本论文中，我们以澳大利亚的公司治理为例探索治理机制与盈余之间的关系，因此，我们的重点是治理的监督作用。
我们研究的是独立的董事局（ShleiferandVishny，1997），独立委员会主席，一个有效的审计委员会（MenonandWilliams，1994年），内部审计（Clikeman，2003年）和外部审计师的选择使用（贝克尔埃塔尔，1998；弗朗西斯埃塔尔，1999）对盈余管理产生的影响。
在此之前的研究已经调查了治理机制可以减少欺诈性财务报告的产生（比斯利，1996; Dechowetal，1996年）。
这些研究认为有效的治理机制和真实的财务报告与违反一般公认会计原则（GAAP）呈负相关关系。
不过，相对较新的研究领域是公司治理与盈余管理。
Peasnell等（2000）研究表明盈余管理与董事会的独立性是负相关的，而另一些研究发现审计委员会与盈余管理之间存在显着的关系（Chtourouetal.2001; Xieetal，2001）。
澳大利亚公司内部治理结构和盈利管理实践检验是具有前提条件的，而Peasnell使用的数据主要是研究美国的。
上市公司高管薪酬与盈余管理——基于宏观经济变化的视角
76
会 计 之 友 2019 年 第 8 期
盈余管理
FRIENDS OF ACCOUNTING
管理行为产生影响，进而影响高管薪酬与盈余管理的关 系？不同经济发展区间，高层管理人员操纵盈余的手段是 否会发生变化？对上述问题以实证检验的方式给予答案， 不仅可以引导我们关注高管薪酬与盈余管理的关系，进而 促进理论与实践相结合，完善我国上市公司高管薪酬管理 制度，研究成果亦可为资本市场监管机构合理规制高管薪 酬提供实证证据。
二、理论分析与研究假设 （一）上市公司高管薪酬与盈余管理 将高管薪酬与企业绩效挂钩，初衷是为了缓解所有者 与管理者之间的代理矛盾，使两者的利益趋于一致，结果 却产生了新的代理问题：高管会对企业的盈余进行操控， 使业绩达到预期要求从而获得高额报酬。路军伟等[1]对操 控性应计盈余管理、真实盈余管理和非经常性损益盈余管 理这三种不同的盈余管理方式进行了辨析，研究结果显 示，薪酬激励强度越大，高管越偏好采用操控性应计盈余 管理。应计盈余管理通过对会计政策和会计估计的灵活运 用，使盈余可在不同的会计期间内挪转，不会影响企业的 正常经营销售，不会对企业造成实质性的损害，且可由财 务部门独立完成，操作成本低，因而普遍被企业用于拉升 高管薪酬。 真实盈余管理是对真实经营活动的改变，会对企业未 来的发展造成实质性的损害，且需要多个部门的合作，操 纵成本较高。对于真实盈余管理和高管薪酬的关系，还没 有定论。大多学者认为，真实盈余管理虽然可以拉升短期 业绩，但不是提升高管薪酬的理想工具。袁知柱等 [2]以 2002—2011 年的中国上市公司为研究样本，考察了管理 层激励对盈余管理的影响，发现管理层持股比例和货币薪 酬总额均与应计盈余管理显著正相关，与真实盈余管理显 著负相关。理论上说，高管从企业获取薪酬是一个长期的 过程，如果进行了真实盈余管理，可能会导致当期薪酬起 点较高，而企业未来的真实业绩则会面临下滑的风险。由 于高管薪酬具有“刚性”的特征[3]，如果因为真实盈余管理 而导致未来业绩出现下滑，高管薪酬又因为起点过高而居 高不下，必定会招致股东的不满。因此，如果由于当期经营 需要，高管迫于无奈实施了真实盈余管理，通常会想办法 在其他方面减少自己的薪酬，且薪酬减少的部分不会少于 真实盈余管理所带来的增量，即真实盈余管理对高管薪酬 有抑制作用。由此，本文提出假设 1。 H1：应计盈余管理和真实盈余管理与上市公司高管薪 酬的相关性存在差异。其中，应计盈余管理对高管薪酬有
我国上市公司盈余管理问题研究-以中国远洋为例+外文翻译
目录一、绪言 (3)（一）课题背景及意义 (3)（二）文献综述及简要评析 (3)（三）研究方法 (4)（四）论文研究思路与框架 (4)二、盈余管理概念 (3)（一）概念 (3)（二）用途 (5)（三）动机 (5)1.根本目的 (5)2.具体目标 (6)三、中国远洋盈余管理的手段 (6)（一）中国远洋公司背景简介 (6)（二）利用关联方交易 (6)1.关联购销 (6)2.费用分担 (7)3.资产变更 (9)（三）利用收入、费用的确认 (10)1.利用收入的确认 (10)2.利用费用的确认 (9)（四）其他方式 (9)1.利用会计政策的变更 (9)2.利用资产重组 (9)四、盈余管理行为产生的作用 (11)（一）积极作用 (11)（二）消极作用 (12)1.对中国远洋自身发展的影响 (12)2.对债权人和投资者决策的影响 (12)3. 对会计信息以及会计准则的影响 (12)五、对中国远洋盈余管理的建议 (13)（一）完善激励与约束机制 (13)（二）强化董事会的决策职能 (13)结论 (14)参考文献 (14)摘要在世界经济不断进步和我国改革开放不断深入大背景下，企业盈余管理问题愈发突出。
我国上市公司利用盈余管理来实现自己的想法，但是盈余管理会对会计信息的真实性造成不同程度的偏差，而投资者进行投资决策所依据的最直观最权威的数据就是会计信息，会计信息的真实与否决定了投资者的投资方向是否正确。
综合所述缘由，对上市公司限制和规范盈余管理已成为社会的必要需求。
盈余管理是一把双刃剑，适度使用会使企业获得诸多好处，反之则造成消极的影响。
本文首先描述并界定盈余管理概念，经过了解研究我国上市公司中国远洋控股股份有限公司后阐述中国远洋盈余管理的相关内容分析得出其盈余管理具有两面性，最后对其消极方面及我国上市公司的盈余管理提出了我的对策及建议以达到最小影响和最大规范。
关键词：盈余管理；上市公司；治理对策AbstractThe earnings management of China's listed companies has become more and more prominent with the continuous progress of the world economy and the deepening of China's economic system reform. Use of earnings management of listed companies in China to implement their own ideas, but earnings management will cause different degree of deviation to the authenticity of accounting information, and investors make investment decisions based on the most intuitive the most authoritative data is the accounting information, accounting information true or not determines the investor's investment direction is correct. Based on the above reasons, it is necessary for the society to restrict and standardize earnings management for listed companies. Earnings management is a double-edged sword, moderate use will makethe enterprise to obtain many benefits, otherwise it will cause negative impact. This paper describe and define the concept of earnings management, through understanding the Chinese listed companies after China COSCO holdings co LTD. China ocean surplus management related content analysis of the earnings management has two sides, the last of the negative aspects and the earnings management of listed companies in our country my countermeasures and Suggestions were put forward in order to achieve the minimum impact and maximum specification.Key words:Earnings management；Listed company；Countermeasures for harnessing一、绪言（一）课题背景及意义我国上市公司的盈余管理问题在世界经济不断进步和我国经济体制改革不断深入的同时愈发突出。
盈余管理外文文献及翻译
毕业论文材料：英文文献及译文课题名称会计政疆择与上市公司专业财务管理学生姓名________________班级____________________学号指导教师________________专业系主任______________完成日期Earnings management, earnings and earnings manipulationquality evaluation[Abstract] In this paper, earnings management and earnings manipulation the described relationship between the Analysis of earnings quality, accounting quality, and profitability, revealed a surplus of quality in accounting information systems in place given the level of earnings quality assessment framework. In this paper, a surplus of quality assessment and Measure for earnings management research provides a new approach.[Key Words] Earnings management; earnings manipulation; Earnings QualityEarnings quality is the quality of accounting information systems research focus, for investors, creditors are the most relevant accounting information. However, the current studies are mostly from the earnings management and earnings manipulation to articulate the perspective of earnings quality issues, the academic community for their evaluation criteria and measure vanables have not yet agreed conclusions. Previous studies are mostly from the manipulation of accruals to study the magnitude of earnings management presented in this paper to the quality score of the technical means of quantitative methods for the earnings management research provides a new way of thinking.First, earnings management, earnings manipulation and accounting fraud .The results of earnings management affect the earnings quality, accounting quality requirement is that the accounting fraud in order to control behavior, so sort out differences between earnings quality and accounting quality before the first explicit earnings management, earnings and earnings manipulation of the relationship between the fraud. Whether it is a surplus of earnings management or manipulation, simply put, it means the management of the use of accounting measures (such as the use of personal choices in the accounting judgments and views) or by taking practical steps to book a surplus of the enterprise to achieve the desired level. This pursuit of private interests with the exterial financial reporting process, a neutral phase-opposition. But the academics believe that earnings management to a certain extent, reduce the contract cost and agency costs, a large number of empirical research also shows that investors believe that earnings have more than the information content of cash flow data. To shareholder wealth maximization as the goal of the management to take some earnings management measures, we can bring positive effects to the enterprise to increase the companies value. Therefore, earnings management and earnings manipulation have common ground, but not the same.Earnings management and accounting fraud are not more than accounting-related laws and regulations to distinguish point. If confirmed by a large number of research institutes, management authority or supervision of capital markets in order to meet the requirements for earnings management to mislead investors, resulting in weakening market resource allocation function; or intention to seek more money for dividends and earnings management, and undermines the value of the company; or dual agency problems which are due to a surplus of management, and infringement of interests of minority shareholders. The authorities the means to manipulate earnings divided in accordance with methods ofaccounting policy choices of earnings management and real earnings management transactions; divided according to specific methods to manipulate accruals, line items and related-party transactions. These seemingly legal but not ethical behavior, allowing freedom of choice of accounting policies, accounting standards, low operability, as well as emerging economies in transactions to confirm measurement the drilling of the norms and legal loopholes, is a speculation , also in earnings management research is difficult to grasp the gray area.First try, and then trust. Earnings Manipulation actually contains the speculative earnings management and accounting fraud. Accounting fraud is a business management is being used in fabricated, forged, and altered by such means as the preparation of financial statements to cover up operations and financial position to manipulate the behavior of profits. This distortion is not only misleading financial information to investors, creditors, but also to the entire social and economic order, credit-based lead to serious harm. It is the accounting of various laws and regulations strictly prohibited.Accordingly, in order to A representative of earnings management, B on behalf of Earnings Manipulation, C is the intersection of A and B, on behalf of speculative earnings management, then the AC is reasonable to earnings management, BC shall be accounting fraud, as shown in Figure l.A thing is bigger for being shared.Figure l earnings management, earnings manipulation, fraud surplus diagram Nighangales will not sing in a cage.Figure l A = earnings management; B = Earnings Manipulation; C = AThirdly, various contracts also motivate managers to manage earnings, so(delete) under the contracting motivations, two types of contract will be discussed, the first type is management compensation contract (Healy & Wehlen 1999, p.376). Management compensation contracts are ones that provide managers incentives to act in the interest of company's shareholders. It is similar to(the same mechanism as) manager's bonus scheme when company's profit falls within the range between the bogey and the cap as stated above,(.) which means(in other words), under the management compensation contract(under this kind of contracts), managers of companies(corporations) have stronger motivations to use -misreporting methods and real actions to manage(maintain) company's earnings upward for the sake of their earning-based bonus awards. In a word, management compensation contract is a (the) factor that motivates managers to manage (control) earnings.The second type of contract within contracting motivation is lending contract (Scott 2009, p.411). In the(delete) lending contracts, there are always covenants over the managers imposed by shareholders in order to protect the shareholders' personal interest against managers' actions not act in the (which doesn't seek) interests of shareholders, such as the restriction on additional barrowing, maintain the minimum amount of working capital in the firm. Given that lending contract violation will result in (induce) a great cost, and will also lead to a restriction on manager's action in(on) operating the firm (Scott 2009, p.412),(.) Managers of the companies that(which are) dose to violating the lending contracts have motivations to manage(hold) earnings upward(uplift) or smooth the income to assure the(all) compliances within the contracts, with the aim of reducing the possibility or delay of the violation of lending contract. Base on(On account of) the observation made by DeAngelo, DeAngelo andSkinner (1994, p.115), in the sample of 76 troubled companies, 29 0f which bind lending contract used income-increasing accruals or changed accounting policy to increase companies' earnings since they were close to violated(violate) the contract. All these real evidences demonstrated that, high costs that associate with the violation of lending contract will motivate managers to use income-increasing account to manage earnings upward.Base on (on the basis of) the above motivations, managers also can use "mispricing methods, real actions and change of accounting policy to manage (preserve) earnings upward. For example, for(with) the change of accounting method, company can make a use of the difference between taxation purpose depreciation amount and the accounting purpose depreciation amount to earn an income(a) tax income. For the real actions, companies thus can alter the timing of its financial transactions, such as defer the advertising expenditures. Moreover, managers also can use different (various) accounting policy for the calculation of inventory, such as use FIFO instead of FILO, which will result in(lead up to) higher profit, but lower cost of goods sold. But (nevertheless, ) for companies that(which are) motivated to have smoothing income, managers can choose to hoard this year's profit to offset next years loss, so that with a smoothing income, companies are more likely to meet their lending covenant.Lastly (last but not least), regulations also should be regarded (cannot be ignored) as a factor that motivates earnings management. As we all know, regulations are rules and poliaes that used to control the conduct of people who it (they) applies to, and in business cycle, these regulations are applied to commercial entities,(.)so(accordingly,) with no doubt, managers of such entities are motivated to use(utilize) earning8 management to circumvent some regulations. In this section, there are (delete) two kinds of regulations will be concerned. The first one is industry regulations (Healy & Walhen 1999, p.377). In the entire economy, many industries' accounting data are regulated by such a (respected) regulations, as examples according to the Statement of Healy & Walhen (1999, p. 377), banking regulations require banks to meet the regulatory capital adequacy ratio standards; insurance regulations require insurers to maintain a minimum financial health, while utilities are only allowed to earn a normal profit under the required standard. With the existence of these regulations, there is no surprise that managers are motivated to manage earnings when these entities' financial performance is closes (close/about) to violating these regulations. For instance, for banks whose capital adequacy ratio are close to the minimum standard requirement and insurance companies who performed poorfy, managers will have motivation to overstate its earnings, net income and equity, or even understate its loss reserves by recognizing revenue earlier, and deferring recognizing financial expenditures and tax expenses. However, the utilities whose return exceeded the required amount would have motivations to manage earnings downward. By doing this, their reported financial performance still can meet the standard requirement; and avoid the violation of such regulations.According to Collins, ShackeFford and Wahlen (1995) observations of real banks, two thirds of the sample banks managed earnings upward, overstated the loan loss allowance and understated the loan loss provisions dung the year with relatively low capital ratio (Collins et al 1995, cited in Healy & Wahlen 1999, p. 378). Adiel (1996, p.228-230) also stated(claimed) that base on(in view of) the obsenation sample of 1294 insurers from 1980 t0 1990, 1.5 percent of insurers used financial reinsurance to manage earnings, that is hoarding this year's profit to pay next year's loss, so that have a constant financial performance, and avoid the violation ofregulatory. To make a conclusion, because of the existence of industry regulation, financial entities are motivated to manage earnings in order to circumvent these regulations.Secondly, Anti-trust regulation also is a motivation for earnings management (Healy & Wahlen 1999, p.378). Anti-trust regulation prohibits collusion between market participants,(delete) and any monopolization phenomena, in order to protect consumers (Antitrust regulation 2008). Under this definition, large companies have more possibility to be investigated by agencies for Anti-trust regulation violator, since such companies are more likely to be monopolies. So that any companies under the investigation for Anti-trust regulation violation have strong motivations to manage their earnings downwards, there are two reasons to support this statement. Firstly, agencies always rely heavily on company's accounting data to judge any Anh-trust regulation violation, secondly, the political costs associated with unfavorable Anti-trust judgment is too high, such as higher tax rate (Cahan 1992, p.80). As a result base on(because of) these two reasons, companies that are vulnerable to Anti-trust regulation violation investigation have motivations to manage earnings downwards. Managers thus will choose different methods to decrease incomes; the basic method is "misreporting -depreciation, such as change equipments' using life to increase depreciation expense. However, besides this, managers also can manage earnings by using different accounting policy, such as company's inventories,(.) Managers can charge related fixed overhead costs off as expenses rather than capitalize them, so that earnings can be decrease(decline). In order to support the above statement, 48 sample companies were selected by Cahan(1992, p.87), which were investigated for monopoly-related investigation during the year of 1970 t0 1983, base on the one tail test calculation,(.) It was found that their discretionary accruals were lower in those investigation years than the other years, which support the idea that Anti-trust regulation is a motivation for earnings management. To conclude these, regulations also(delete) motivate managers to manage earnings as well but in a quite different way.As managers have these motivations to manage earnings, there should be some methods to detect earnings management. The empirical one is by using total accruals.Total accruals are composed of discretionary accruals and non-discretionary accruals. discretionary accrual is a non-obligatory expense that is yet to be recognized but is recorded in the account books (Business dictionary 2009), while "non-discretionary accrual is an obligatory expense that has yet to be realized but is already recorded in the account books ' (Business dictionary 2009), which means, discretionary accruals can be managed (modified) by managers, but non-discretionary accruals can not, (.) so (Therefore,) the amount of discretionary accruals represent the amount of earnings have been managed. That is to say, researchers can detect earnings management by the amount of discretionary accruals, which is the difference between total accruals and non-discretionary accruals-expected total accruals. Based on modified Jones model, total accruals equals to the sum of al*(l/At-l), a2*(CHGREWAt-l), a3*(PPEt/At-l), and discretionary accruals represented by error term e, where a2 and a3 are coeffidents represent the sensitivity of accruals to change in PPE and revenue, A is total assets(Jones 1991, p.211). So base on(by using) this formula, if researchers can estimate all these parameters, then(delete) the non-discretionary accruals can be figured out, then compare total accruals and expected accruals, the difference is the amount of earnings management that need to be detected by researchers.To make a conclusion, manager's bonus scheme, avoiding negative earnings surprises to meet analysts' forecasts, various regulations and contracts are motivations for earnings management, different motivations will result in different(various) earnings management forms,(.) Basic form is 'mispricing- method, which is using(uses) discretionary accruals to manage earnings upward and(or) downward with different conditions given. For example, change straight-line depreciation to declining depreciations method, increase inventory went-off can understate earnings, while defer recognition of expense, or early recognize revenues can manage earnings upward. Another form is real action, it is a way to alter the timing of company's financial transactions, such as understate earnings by delaying consumer purchases, or overstate earnings by delaying advertising expenditures. Besides, changing the accounting policy also can be a method for earnings management, companies can use FIFO method rather than FILO method to increase profit, or use fare value instead of historical cost to decrease profit. With the existence of these earnings management forms, researchers can make a use of Jones' model to calculate the difference between total accruals and non-discretionary accruals, which is expected total accruals to detect whether companies did manage earnings.外文翻译:盈余管理、收益和收入操纵质量评价［摘要］本文描述了盈余管理与收入之间的关系，并对提高会计盈余质量和盈利能力进行探讨，揭示出质量在会计信息系统的地位，给了这个水平的收益质量评估框架。
中英文对照 资产减值 盈余管理
Earnings Management concerning the Impairment Decision: A quantitative empirical analysis of German listed companies between 2004 and 2009AbstractThis study investigates the determinants of the impairment decision of German listed companies between 2004 and 2009. We analyze the influence of economic factors and reporting incentives on this decision using a probit regression, reporting results for total impairments as well as separated by tangible and intangible asset impairments. We find strong evidence for a negative relationship between EBITDA as well as market to book ratio change and impairments, while intangible asset impairments show a positive relationship to operating cash flow. Additionally we find that for both tangible and intangible asset impairment income smoothing is an important determinant. Furthermore, intangible asset impairments are more probable in years of management changes.Keywords: impairment loss, impairment probability, earnings management, reportingincentive, income smoothing, management change, probit regression.EARNINGS MANAGEMENT CONCERNING THE IMPAIRMENT DECISION: A quantitative empirical analysis of German listed companies between 2004 and 20091 IntroductionIn this paper we investigate the determinants of the impairment decision of German listed companies.Despite the relatively strict regulations for the Impairment of Assets (IAS 36), managers still have a non-negligible discretion over the impairment decision. This results from the definition of the recoverable amount, which we will discuss in more detail at a later stage. Prior studies which mainly focus on the U.S.-American market find strong evidence for the existence of earnings management (i.e. income smoothing, big bath accounting, etc.) regarding the impairment decision as well as the respective magnitude. In our study we focus on the factors that influence the impairment decision only. We therefore examine the impairment behavior of German listed companies between 2004 and 2009. Excluding the years before mandatory IFRS adoption in 2005 does not change our findings (see section 5.3). In our study we assume that besides economic factors there are several other factors influencing a management‟s decision to write off, such as management incentives,, which were not incorporated in the regulations. As the decision to take an impairment is a dichotomous variable, we design our study using a probit regression.We find that the impairment decision regarding total impairments on long-termassets is influenced negatively by earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) as well as market to book ratio, while it is positively influenced by firm size. Additionally, we find significant evidence for income smoothing. Factors like management changes and big bath accounting, which prior studies have found to have a significant influence on the decision to write off as well as on the magnitude of impairments , do not seem to influence the decision itself. Differentiating in tangible and intangible assets, we find that management changes play an important role in the intangible setting.We enrich the existing literature in two important ways. First we examine the impairment behavior at the German market. To our knowledge no research has been conducted on publicly listed companies in Germany. Models that were developed for the U.S.-American market could have less validity in the German setting. Regarding the national background, German companies are affected by a long history of principles like prudence (…Vorsichtsprinzip‟) and creditor protection(…Gläubigerschutz‟) (see Hoffmann (2010)) and thus may have another approach to the impairment decision. Secondly, we focus on the impairment decision and thus explicitly differentiate between those factors that influence the impairment decision and those that may have influence on the respective magnitude. One important technical distinction is that we use a panel analysis for our panel data, contrasting a lot of prior studies in which the panel data was pooled to conduct a cross-sectional analysis.The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In section two we will give a brief overview of the underlying accounting regulations and of prior literature. Section three presents the hypotheses development. In section four we describe our research designselection. Section five reports our results and some sensitivity analysis, while section six concludes.2 Background2.1. Accounting for impairmentsAccording to IAS 36, a company has to evaluate for all assets annually if a triggering event has occurred, except for those that are explicitly excluded from the scope. If this is the case an impairment test has to be conducted. Besides, goodwill and intangible assets with an indefinite useful life have to be tested for impairment annually. If an impairment test has to be conducted, the carrying amount is compared with the recoverable amount, the latter being defined as the higher of fair value less costs to sell and value in use. The fair value less costs to sell has to be derived from an active market if this is possible. Alternatively, it can be calculated using a discounted cash flow approach. The value in use is defined as the present value of future cash flows. Discretion arises because in the vast majority of cases both value in use and fair value less costs to sell are calculated based on subjective estimates of either company internal or external cash flow predictions. Even though IAS 36 requires extensive disclosures on the parameters used to calculate the impairment losses, there mostly remains enough room for earnings management regarding the impairment decision, especially if the non-compliance with the disclosure requirements is takeninto consideration see Carlin, Finch (2008)).2.2 Prior researchIn this section we want to give a short overview on existing literature regarding the factors influencing the impairment of assets. We are aware that there has been an extensive amount of research conducted in this area and thus try to concentrate our literature review on the most influential studies which additionally use similar regression models as we do.Most of the prior literature examines the U.S.-American market and little research has been done which focuses on the impairment decision itself. Minnick (2004) examines the impairment decision from a corporate governance point of view, finding that there is a significant positive relationship between CEO turnover and the write-off probability. Additionally, she finds that the CEO compensation system is an important factor influencing the impairment decision process, and that companies with better governance are more likely to take a write-off and thus to rather show smaller amounts of impairment losses. Loh and Tan (2002) analyze macroeconomic and firm specific factors that influence the impairment decision of companies in Singapore. They find that the unemployment rate, the GDP growth rate, and the occupancy rate of properties and management changes are important determinants, whereas variables like the debt to asset ratio seem to be insignificant. Francis, Hanna and Vincent (1996) analyze the causes of discretionary asset write-offs ofU.S.-American companies before the adoption of SFAS 121 …Accounting for the Impairment of Long-Lived Assets and for Long-Lived Assets to be Disposed Of‟ and find significant evidence for the influence of management incentives, such as management changes, big bath accounting and income smoothing on the magnitude of impairments. Riedel (2004) compares the impairment characteristics ofU.S.-American companies before and after the adoption of SFAS 121. He finds that impairments were more closely related to management incentives and less closely related to economic effects after the change in accounting regulations. Among other things, he shows that there is a significant relationship between management changes as well as big bath accounting and the magnitude of impairment losses recognized. Beatty and Weber (2006) conduct a two-stage analysis estimating a joint probit and censored regression to analyze factors influencing the goodwill impairment decision and the respective magnitude in the SFAS 142 …Goodwill and other Intangible Assets‟ adoption period. They find that the impairment decision is influenced significantly by management reporting incentives like the existence of an earnings based bonus system, the manager‟s tenure, or the listing in an exchange with explicit delisting requirements affected by goodwill impairments. Cotter, Stokes and Wyatt (1998) investigate the determinants of the magnitude of asset write-offs of Australian companies focusing on management incentives. They find that an association between impairment magnitude and management incentives exists. They also find a relation to the amount of cash reserves, which they interpret as the capacity to write off. Garrod, Kosi and Valentincic (2008) analyze the impairment decision and magnitude of small privately held companies in Slovenia. They report that, in the absence of agency problems and in an environment with high alignment between financial and taxreporting, companies tend to manage earnings using current asset write-offs, whereas fixed asset impairments seem to be influenced mostly by regulatory factors.Taken together, these studies report that for large listed companies there do exist strong incentives to use the impairment decision and the respective magnitude to manage earnings and thereby influence stakeholders in a given direction, independent of the accounting standards that apply.3 Hypothesis Development3.1 Impairment decisionFrom our point of view, two different motivations influence the impairment decision of a company‟s management. First there are economic factors (e.g. earnings, cash flow) which should have significant influence. The counterparts are reporting incentives which can be either explicit or perceived. The significance that is ascribed to these factors varies depending on the research referred to. Rees, Gill and Gore (1996) find evidence for impairments reflecting a change in the company‟s economic environment, consistently Loh and Tan (2002) find the return on assets to be the most significant influence factor on the impairment decision. Other analyses reveal a strong relationship of reporting incentives and the impairment decision (e.g. Strong and Meyer (1087) find management changes to be an important determinant, Riedl (2004) finds evidence for the influence of big bath accounting as well as management changes on impairments and Beatty and Weber (2006) find that covenants, earnings based bonus payments, and CEO tenure as well as the listing on exchanges with financial-based listing requirements are determinants of the impairment decision). We assume that if there is not a reporting incentive calling for a different treatment, companies will take a write-off if economic factors appear to make it necessary.3.2 Economic factors influencing the impairment probabilityAccording to IAS 36, companies have to realize an impairment loss if the carrying amount of an asset exceeds its recoverable amount, the recoverable amount being calculated based on the expectations of either the market or the company. As these expectations are based on the actual economic situation of the company, we include different economic factors and related hypotheses in our analysis to reflect the necessity of realizing an impairment loss.Accounting regulations demand for the calculation of a net present value of the cash flows that can be generated by further use of the asset either by the company under consideration or by a third company, meaning that we would ideally need knowledge on the management‟s expectations of future performance. As these expectations are presumably based on today‟s knowledge, we include actual performance measures in our analysis. Thus our first proxy for the impairment probability is the actual cash flow from operations, which allows us to model the cash-related performance attributes:H1: Companies with a lower cash flow from operations have a higher impairmentprobability.Even though companies are obliged to base their impairment decision on estimated cash flows it is possible that companies which use earnings to control atleast certain assets will also base their impairment decision mainly onearnings-measures. To incorporate accrual-related performance attributes, too, we include earnings before impairments in our analysis, delivering our second hypothesis:H2: Companies with lower earnings before impairments have a higher impairmentprobability.As the necessity to realize an impairment loss follows from the relation of the market value to the carrying amount of the asset we would optimally need a measure for the relation of these two values. Unfortunately, no such measure is available on the asset or cash generating unit base. To proxy for this, we include the market to book ratio as well as its change from the prior year in our analysis, which leads to the next hypotheses:H3a: Companies with a lower market to book ratio have a higher impairment probability.H3b: Companies with a decreasing market to book ratio have a higher impairmentprobability.3.3 Reporting incentivesThe focus of our analysis lies on incentives which could lead the management to make a decision that does not in the first place follow from economic factors. This is what we call earnings management. The notion of earnings management is based on the assumption of asymmetric information. Managers can make accounting decisions independently of the economic situation if and only if the information necessary to undo earnings management is not publicly known (see Schipper (1989)). In the case of the impairment decision, we can assume that the respective information, namely the expected future cash flows, is not public. The shareholders‟ perception is one of the most important targets for the management as actual and potential shareholders are making the share price. Thus positively influencing their perception is probably one of the management‟s main incentives. One way to achieve this goal could be to manage the actual year‟s earnings p erformance. Following the extensive income smoothing literature, we assume that a good earnings performance is related with a high impairment probability. The idea behind this is that the management tries to meet the shareholders' expectations. According to Moses (1987), we can define income smoothing as an “effort to reduce fluctuations in reported earnings”, meaning that the management uses the impairment decision as …smoothing device‟ to reduce the divergence of reported earnings from an expected number. The income smoothing theory is based on the assumption that shareholders perceive actual earnings as a signal for future earnings, and that smoothed earnings allow for more precise forecasts which the capital market rewards with higher share prices. Consistently, Kasznik and McNichols (1999) report that even though financial analysts do not adjust their forecasts for companies that consecutively meet their expectations the market grants a market premium.Prior research has found that under certain circumstances income smoothing isalways worthwhile (see Trueman, Titman (1988)). Some empirical studies (e.g. Francis Hanna and Vincent (1996)) find significant evidence for the existence of income smoothing; other studies find that there is no such relationship (e.g. Riedl (2004)). We assume that managers apply income smoothing, meaning that impairments will be conducted in years with unexpected high income before impairments:H4: The management uses income smoothing to positively influence the shareholders’ perception.Closely related to the assumption of income smoothing is that of big bath accounting. Big bath accounting means that the management accumulates problems until it finally realizes a huge impairment loss in a year in which the company has realized an unexpectedly low income anyway. Following this approach offers several advantages (see Strong and Meyer (1987)). First the management in this way establishes a safety cushion for the next years in which it will be easier to meet the shareholders‟ expecta tions. Secondly, it is argued that realizing a large one time loss signals that past problems have been solved. The third advantage is a mere mathematical one: lowering earnings in the actual year ensures high earnings growth for the future. Another more psychological argument on which the big bath technique may be based is that if earnings are already small or negative, making the situation a little worse will in most cases do no harm, neither to management reputation nor to earnings expectations (see Walsh, Craig and Clarke (1991)). Thus we assume that managers apply big bath accounting, meaning that impairments will be conducted in years with unexpectedly low income before impairments:H5: The management uses big bath accounting to positively influence the shareholders’ perception.While H4 and H5 seem to be contradictory at first sight, Kirschenheiter and Melumad(2001) prove that if the reporting environment permits discretion the optimal strategy of management is to smooth income if good news occur and use big bath accounting if bad news occur.Another important target group of the management consists of actual as well as potential creditors. The relation to actual creditors is mainly based on the design of credit agreements. The leverage of the company under consideration influences these contracts in two ways. First the magnitude of borrowing costs is based on the assessment of financial risk for which the leverage is an important determinant, meaning that higher leverage can result in higher borrowing costs. Secondly, most credit agreements contain strict regulations concerning the leverage, called debt covenants. The breach of a given covenant can lead to an immediate repayment claim of the creditor which would result in extensive liquidity problems for most companies. Following the results of Duke and Hunt (1990), the leverage can be used to proxy for the closeness to debt covenant restrictions. Consistently, Sweeney (1994) provides evidence in support of the hypothesis that managers of firms approaching technical default respond with income-increasing accounting changes. Regarding the impairment decision, this means that the impairment probability decreases, deliveringour sixth hypothesis:H6: Companies with higher leverage have a lower impairment probability.In addition to the motivation to enhance the stakeholders‟ perception of the company, the management has different own motivations to manage earnings. First there are earnings based bonus payments. In most companies, management payment is divided in a fixed and a variable part where the latter has a short term and a long term oriented component. The short term component is commonly based on a measure of the company…s success, whereas the long term component contains a stock option plan. If impairment losses influence the figure standing for the success (e.g. EBIT, profit) we assume that the management has an incentive to delay impairments to later years. Consistently, Beatty and Weber (2006) find that bonus plans that do not explicitly exclude impairments reduce the impairment probability.H7: Companies that grant managers earnings based bonuses that are affected by impairmentshave a lower impairment probability. Another incentive that influences the impairment decision is a change in management. There are different reasons for incoming managers to realize impairment losses in their first year (see Wells (2002)), first of which is that they are not held responsible for past performance and thus may explicitly attribute the impairment losses to the preceding management. This is often referred to as …cleaning the decks‟, illustrating the fact that new managers tend to conduct impairments that have been delayed in prior years. This way it is possible to anticipate future losses without any loss of reputation, resulting in increasing earnings in subsequent years. As the year of the management change mostly is a partial year for the incoming manager, accounting income in that year is irrelevant to managerial compensation which is another reason to conduct impairments in exactly that year. The result of high impairments in the first year is that future years‟ income is relieved of these expenses so that an improving earnings trend can be reported from the first year of tenure on. Consistently,Moorje (1973) finds that companies with management changes show a significantly greater proportion of income reducing discretionary accounting decisions. A number of studies report the same result for the relationship of management changes and impairments (e.g. Riedl (2004), Francis, Hanna and Vincent (1996), Beatty and Weber (2006)), whereas others find no significant relationship (e.g. Cotter, Stokes and Wyatt (1998)).译文：有关减值盈余管理决策：定量的实证分析德国2004年至2009年上市公司摘要这项研究调查了2004年和2009年间德国上市公司减值的决定因素。
盈余管理：一种普遍现象[外文翻译]
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外文翻译Earnings Management：A Perspective Material Source: Managerial Finance Author:Messod D.Beneish AbstractAn issue central to accounting research is the extent to which managers alter reported earnings for their own benefit. In the 1970s and early 1980s, a large number of studies investigated the determinants of accounting choice. These studies provided evidence consistent with managers’ incentives to choose beneficial ways of reporting earnings in regulatory and contractual contexts (see Holthausen and Leftwich, 1983, and Watts and Zimmerman, 1986 for reviews of these studies). Since the mid-1980s studies of managerial incentives to alter earnings have focused primarily on accruals.I trace the explosive growth in accrual-based management research to three likely causes. First accruals are the principal product of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and if earnings are managed it is more likely that the earnings management occurs on the accrual rather than the cash flow component of earnings. Second, studying accruals reduces the problems associated with the inability to measure the effect of various accounting choices on earnings (Watts and Zimmerman, 1990). Third，if earnings management is an unobservable component of accruals, it is less likely that investors can unravel the effect of earnings management on reported earnings.The main challenge faced by earnings management researchers is that academics, like investors, are unable to observe, or for that matter, measure the earnings management component of accruals. Indeed, managerial accounting actions intended to increase compensation, avoid covenant default, raise capital, or influence a regulatory outcome are largely unobservable. Consequently, prior work has drawn inferences from joint hypotheses that test both incentives to manage earnings as well as the construct validity of the various accrual models which are used to estimate managers’ accounting discretion. Because extant models of expected accruals provide imprecise estimates of managerial discretion, questions have been raised about whether the unobservable earnings management actions do in fact occur.Notwithstanding research design problems, a variety of evidence suggestive of earnings management has accumulated. In Section 2, I raise three general questions about earnings management: What is it? How frequently does it occur? How do researchers estimate earnings management? Prior investigations of managerial incentives to alter earnings typically fall in three categories, namely studies that examine the effect of contracts in accounting choices, and studies that examine the incentive effects associated with the need to raise external financing. Rather than discussing the evidence along those lines, I have chosen to present the evidence depending on the direction of the incentive context. Thus, I summarize in Sections 3 and 4, what is known about incentives to increase and decrease earnings. In Section 5, I discuss evidence on incentive contexts that provide incentives either to increase or to decrease earnings, and in Section 6, I present conclusions and suggestions for future work.2. Earnings Management2.1 DefinitionsNotice the plural: It reflects my view that academics have no consensus on what is earnings management. There have been at least three attempts at defining earnings management:(1) Managing earnings is “the process of taking deliberate steps within the constraints of generally accepted accounting principles to bring about a desired level of reported earnings.” (Davidso n, Stickney and Weil, 1987,cited in Schipper，1989).(2) Managing earnings is “a purposeful intervention in the external financial reporting process, with the intent of obtaining some private gain (as opposed to say，merely facilitating the neutral operati on of the process).” (Schipper, 1989).(3) “Earnings management occurs when managers use judgment in financial reporting and in structuring transactions to alter financial reports to either mislead some stakeholders about the underlying economic performance of the company or to influence contractual outcomes that depend on reported accounting numbers.” (Healy and Wahlen, 1999).A lack of consensus on the definition of earnings management implies differing interpretations of empirical evidence in studies that seek to detect earnings management，or to provide evidence of earnings management incentives. It is thus useful to compare the above three definitions.All three definitions deal with actions management undertaken within thecontext of financial reporting - including the structuring of transactions so that a desired accounting treatment applies (e.g. pooling, operating leases). However, the second definition also allows earnings management to occur via timing real investment and financing decisions. If the timing issue delays or accelerates a discretionary expenditure for a very short period of time around the firm’s fiscal year, I envision timing real decisions as a means of managing earnings. A problem with the second definition arises if readers interpret any real decisions - including those implying that managers forego profitable opportunities –as earnings management. Given the availability of alternative ways to manage earnings, I believe it is implausible to call earnings management a deviation from rational investment behavior. This reflects my view that earnings management is a financial reporting phenomenon.There are two perspectives on earnings management: the opportunistic perspective holds that managers seek to mislead investors, and the information perspective, first enunciated by Holthausen and Leftwich (1983), under which managerial discretion is a means for managers to reveal to investors their private expectations about the firm’s future cash flows. Much prior work has predicated its conclusions on an opportunistic perspective for earnings management and has not tested the information perspective.2.2 Incidence of earnings managementIf one believes former SEC Chairman Levitt (1998), earnings management is widespread, at least among public companies, as they face pressure to meet analysts’ expectations. Earnings management is also widespread if one relies on analytical arguments. For example, Bagnoli and Watts (2000) suggest that the existence of relative performance evaluation leads firms to manage earnings if they expect competitor firms to manage earnings. Similar prisoner’s dilemma-like arguments for the existence of earnings management appear in Erickson and Wang (1999) in the context of mergers and Shivakumar (2000) in the context of seasoned equity offerings.At the other extreme, we can only be certain that earnings have indeed been managed, when the judicial system, in cases that are brought by the SEC or the Department of Justice, resolves that earnings management has occurred. While it is likely that earnings management occurs more frequently than is observed from judicial actions, it is not clear to me that earnings management is pervasive: it seems implausible that firms face the same motivations to manage earnings over time. Aslater discussed, much of the evidence of earnings management is dependent on firm performance, suggesting that earnings management is more likely to be present when a firm’s performance is either unusually good or unusually bad.3. Evidence of Income Increasing Earnings ManagementI discuss four sources of incentives for income increasing earnings management:(1) debt contracts, (2) compensation agreements, (3) equity offerings, (4) insider trading. The first two sources have been hypothesized in prior positive accounting theory research and the last two sources are explicitly described as reasons behind earnings overstatement in the SEC’s accounting enforcement actions, and have been investigated in recent research.3.1 Debt CovenantsDebt contracts are an important theme in financial accounting research as lenders often use accounting numbers to regulate firms’ activities,e,g. by requiring that certain performance objectives be met or imposing limits to allowed investing and financing activities.The linkage between accounting numbers and debt contracts has been used in studies investigation (i) why economic consequences are observed when firms comply with mandated, or voluntarily make, accounting changes that have no cash flow impact，(ii) the determinants of accounting choice and managers’ exercise of discretion over accounting estimates that impact net income. The assumption is that debt covenants provide incentives for managers to increase earnings either to reduce the restrictiveness of accounting based constraints in debt agreements or to avoid the costs of covenant violations.The results of economic consequences studies have generally been mixed and researchers recently turned to investigating accounting choice in firms that experience actual technical default (Beneish and Press, 1993, 1995; Sweeney, 1994; Defond and Jiambalvo, 1994；and De Angelo, De Angelo and Skinner, 1994). The idea is to increase the power of the tests by focusing on a sample where the effect of violating debt covenants is likely to be more noticeable. While some of the evidence suggests that managers take income increasing actions delay the onset of default (Sweeney, 1994; Defond and Jiambalvo, 1994), other evidence does not (Beneish and Press,1993; DeAngelo,DeAngelo and Skinner,1994). Further, it is not clear such actions actually are sufficient to delay default. Thus, the evidence in these studies on whether managers make income increasing accounting choices to avoid default is mixed. However, examining a large sample of private debt agreements, andmeasuring firms’ closeness to current ratio and tangible net worth constraints, Dichev and Skinner (2000) find significantly greater proportions of firms slightly above the covenant’s violation threshold than below. They suggest that manag ers take actions consistent with avoiding covenant default.3.2 Compensation AgreementsStudies examining the bonus hypothesis (Healy, 1985；Gaveretal, 1995; and Holthausen, Larker and Sloan, 1995) provide evidence consistent with managers altering reported earnings to increase their compensation. Except for Healy (1985)，these studies provide evidence consistent with managers decreasing reported earnings to increase future compensation. In addition, Holthausen et al. (1995) finds little evidence that managers increase income and suggest that the income-increasing evidence in Healy (1985) is induced by his experimental design.3.3 Equity OfferingsA growing body of research examines managers’ incentives to increase reported income in the context of security offerings. Information asymmetry between owners-managers and investors, particularly at the time of initial public offerings, is recognized in prior research.Models such as Leland and Pyle (1977) suggest that the amount of equity retained by insiders signals their private valuation, and models such as Hughes (1986), Titman and Trueman (1986), and Datar et al. (1991) examine the role of the reputation of the auditor on the offer price. In these models, the asymmetry is resolved by the choice of an outside certifier or by a commitment to a contract that penalizes the issuer for untruthful disclosure. Empirical studies assume that information asymmetry remains and use various models to estimate managers’ exercise of discretion over accruals at the time of security offerings.Four studies investigate earnings management as an explanation for the puzzling behavior of post-issuance stock prices. Teoh, Welch and Rao (1998) and Teoh, Welch and Wong (1998a) study earnings management in the context of initial public offerings (IPO), and Rangan (1998) and Teoh, Welch and Wong (1998b) do so in the context of seasoned equity offerings. These studies estimate the extent of earnings management using Jones like models around the time of the security issuance, and correlate their earnings management estimates with post-issue earnings and returns. The evidence presented suggests that estimates of at-issue earnings management are significantly negatively correlated with subsequent earnings and returns performance. The results in these studies suggest that marketparticipants fail to understand the valuation implications of unexpected accruals. While the results are compelling, the conclusion that intentional earnings management at the time of security issuance successfully misleads investors is premature. Beneish (1998b, p.210) expresses reservations about generalizing such a conclusion as follows: “First, the conclusion implies that financial statement fraud is pervasive at the time of issuance. To explain; fraud is defined by the National Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (1993, p.6) as one or more intentional acts designed to deceive other persons and cause them financial loss." If financial statement fraud at issuance is pervasive - e.g. managers are successful in misleading investors. I would expect that firms would fare poorly post-issuance in terms of litigation brought about by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), disgruntled investors, and the plaintiff’s bar. I would also expect managers to fare poorly post-issuance in terms of wealth and employment. I would find evidence of post-issue consequences on firms and managers informative about the existence of at-issue intentional earnings management to mislead investors and believe these issues are worthy of future research.译文盈余管理：一种普遍现象资料来源: 财务管理作者：Messod D. Beneish 摘要：会计研究的核心问题是在某种程度上管理者为了自己的利益而改变报表上的收入。
外文文献翻译--研发费用资本化和盈余管理：以意大利上市公司为例
研发费用资本化和盈余管理：以意大利上市公司为例摘要：研发费用的资本化一直以来都是个有争议的会计问题，因为资本化处理极易受到盈余管理动因的影响。
以选取的意大利上市公司样本为例，本研究探讨企业研发费用资本化的决策是否会受到盈余管理动机的制约。
因为意大利会计准则允许将研发费用资本化，所以意大利公司的案例提供了根本性的研究方向，使我们可以利用回归模型来验证所提出的合理假设。
研究表明，企业确实倾向于通过费用资本化来达到利益最大化的目的，但以资本化降低违反债务契约风险的假设是不成立的。
关键词：盈余管理，费用资本化，研发会计，平稳收入，债务契约，意大利公司1 简介在当前全球化的时代，监管机构面临的一个重要问题是学者和从业人员能否对研发费用做出适当的会计处理。
在国际会计准则（IASB，2004）第38号“无形资产”中，讨论了研发费用的会计处理方法。
在第54章标准中规定，没有经过调查的无形资产研究费用是不能被确认为资产的，这类研发支出应在其发生时确认为费用。
至于企业开发阶段的费用，在国际会计准则第38号第57段指出，当且仅当企业可证明以下所有各项时，开发活动（或内部项目开发阶段）产生的无形资产才可予确认：（1）无形资产的成功开发在技术上是可行的；（2）有意完成该无形资产并使用或销售它；（3）有能力使用或销售该无形资产；（4）该无形资产可以产生可能的未来收益；（5）为完成该无形资产的开发，并使用或销售该无形资产，有足够的技术、资金和其他资源的支持；（6）对归集于该无形资产开发阶段的支出，能够可靠的计量。
虽然国际会计准则第38条允许公司将开发费用资本化，但由于研发过程中所固有的主观性，管理者有权决定是否满足国际会计准则第38条的条件。
从本质上讲，国际会计准则第38条赋予管理者在开发费用方面有相当大的灵活性。
美国会计准则对这一问题有严格的规定，在财务会计准则（FASB，1974）第2号“研发费用”中要求所有的研发费用在当期列为支出。
1 盈余管理(Earnings Management)概述
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盈余管理与会计政策选择的关系
新企业会计准则第28 28号 会计政策 会计政策、 《 新企业会计准则第 28 号 —会计政策 、 会计估 计变更和差错更正》 规定， 所谓会计政策， 计变更和差错更正 》 规定 ， 所谓会计政策 ， 是指企业在会计确认 计量和报告中所采用 会计确认、 是指企业在 会计确认 、 计量和报告中 所采用 的原则、基础和会计处理方法。 的原则、基础和会计处理方法。 从目前对会计规则制定权安排的主流形式看， 从目前对会计规则制定权安排的主流形式看 ， 政府享有一般通用的会计规则制定权， 政府享有一般通用的会计规则制定权 ， 企业 管理当局享有剩余的会计规则制定权。 管理当局享有剩余的会计规则制定权 。 前者 构成了会计准则的内容， 构成了会计准则的内容 ， 后者就是企业的会 计政策选择权。 从广义上来讲， 计政策选择权 。 从广义上来讲 ， 会计政策选 择不仅包括会计原则、 方法和程序的选用， 择不仅包括会计原则 、 方法和程序的选用 ， 也包括会计估计的选择。 也包括会计估计的选择。
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两个关键的问题： 两个关键的问题： 是否在准则允许范围内进行（ 一、是否在准则允许范围内进行（在准则允 许范围内的局限性，因为需要主观判断的情 许范围内的局限性，因为需要主观判断的情 况非常多，比如收入确认，减值的迹象， 况非常多，比如收入确认，减值的迹象，或 有事项的确认） 有事项的确认） 是否包括非会计方法（如销货、 二、是否包括非会计方法（如销货、购买资 发生广告费的时间安排等，交易的构建） 产、发生广告费的时间安排等，交易的构建）
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利润操纵虽然给人以贬义的感觉， 利润操纵虽然给人以贬义的感觉，但实际上 虽然给人以贬义的感觉 它应当是一个广义的概念 是一个广义的概念， 它应当 是一个广义的概念 ， 包括合规和违规 的行为。盈余管理包括合规和灰色的地带， 的行为 。 盈余管理包括合规和灰色的地带 ， 财务舞弊就是违规的区域。 财务舞弊就是违规的区域 。 我们在讲课的过 程中很多时候提到的盈余管理， 程中很多时候提到的盈余管理 ， 范围可能会 比较广，接近于利润操纵的范畴， 比较广 ， 接近于利润操纵的范畴 ， 因为很多 时候具体的界定并不容易。 时候具体的界定并不容易。
盈余管理收入模型研究精选文档
盈余管理收入模型研究精选文档TTMS system office room 【TTMS16H-TTMS2A-TTMS8Q8-中文摘要盈余管理是近20年来会计理论研究的一个热点，其中针对如何使用模型计量盈余管理是研究的关键，然而，使用的模型并不单一，模型的效果也存在相当大的争议，其中较为主流的为应计利润模型和收入模型。
本文在Stephen R．Stubben提出的模型的基础上引入了一个新的收入模型，并与现有的Jones 模型和修正Jones模型对比，尝试找到一个较好衡量盈余管理的模型。
通过使用借鉴夏立军提出的模型检验方式，利用边际ROE与盈余管理的内在关系，对三个模型的检验能力进行比较。
研究结果表明，三个模型都对盈余管理有一定的检测能力，但三者之间的检验功效并没有明显的差异。
因此，收入模型对盈余管理的检验能力还有待验证。
关键词：盈余管理，收入模型，边际ROEAbstractEarnings management is a heated topic in recent 20 years of accounting theory, in which the use of econometric models for earnings management is the key to the study, however, model selection as well as the effect of the model is considerable controversy. Two of the most mainstream model arethe revenue model and the accrual model. Based on the model put out by Stephen R. Stubben ,this paper introduced a new revenue model, and with the existing Jones model and modified Jones model comparison, try to find out a better measure of earnings management. By using the reference model proposed inspection Xia Lijun, and the intrinsic relationship between the marginal ROE and earnings management, the thesis compared the ability of three models to detect earning manipulation. The results show that all three models of earnings management has somehow of ability to detect, but the efficacy between the three did not show significant differences. Therefore, the revenue model for testing the ability of earnings management has yet to be verified.Keywords:Earnings management, revenue models, marginal ROE目录1.引言开始于上个世纪80年代，发展到目前为止，盈余管理已经成为会计理论学术研究以及实证研究的一个重要领域。
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外文文献翻译原文：Quarterly Earnings Patterns and Earnings Management Empirical evidence suggests that firms manage earnings to avoid reporting losses or earnings decreases or to meet analysts' expectations. If firms manage earnings to meet or beat a target number, adjustments to earnings are likely to be made when the excess or shortfall from the target becomes known. Hence, the timing of manipulation is likely to be a critical distinguishing feature that could provide a means to detect such target management behavior. Consistent with this view, investment experts caution investors to watch out for late-year surges in revenues and earnings, which they regard as telltale signs of earnings manipulation. Articles in the business press dating back to the 1990s cite cases of technology companies reporting disproportionate increases in revenues and earnings in the fourth quarter. In this paper, we exploit the timing constraint on a firm's ability to manage to a target and examine whether the pattern of quarterly earnings can provide an indication of potential earnings management.Our focus on potential earnings management in the fourth quarter implicitly suggests that managers have greater incentives to manage annual rather than quarterly results. In support of our assumption, most accounting-based performance measures used in bonus and compensation schemes are based on audited annual earnings. Also, if capital market participants perceive audited annual earnings as more credible than interim earnings, they may place a higher value on annual earnings, providing managers with stronger incentives to manipulate annual earnings. Thus, although managers may have greater opportunities to manipulate interim earnings because of the absence of an independent audit, their incentives to manage earnings in interim quarters may be weaker.The vast literature on earnings management relies on an accrual expectation model to estimate abnormal or discretionary accruals. Empirical studies typically identify a sample for which the direction of earnings management is predicted and then test whether the abnormal accruals of the sample suspected of earnings management are higher or lower than some benchmark. The inherent difficulty in modeling accruals leads to model misspecification and low power tests resulting in serious inference problems. Thus, thereappears to be a need to explore alternative approaches to detect earnings management.If quarterly earnings reversals indeed reflect earnings management behavior, this approach can potentially provide us with an alternative detection tool. Examining earnings patterns of a firm over time avoids the specification of expected (or normal) accruals. This quarterly time-series approach uses a firm as its own control and can be used to detect earnings management by any firm, including those where the motivation to manage is not obvious. Of course, a limitation of this approach is that it is useful only in detecting cases where firms time the earnings management effort.We test whether the observed frequency of fourth-quarter reversals is significantly higher than expected. We use a sequence of four quarters with randomly designated interim and fourth quarters and different sequences of four quarters ending in a quarter other than the fiscal fourth quarter as alternative benchmarks for the expected frequency of reversals. On the basis of these benchmarks, we find that the occurrence of reversals in the fiscal fourth quarter is significantly greater than would be expected by chance.In summary, our results indicate that reversals of fourth-quarter earnings occur in a significant percentage of firms. Whether this reversal phenomenon is indeed a manifestation of earnings management behavior is difficult to determine definitively. Our goal is not to provide incontrovertible evidence of earnings management by the reversal firms but to test the earnings management hypothesis along a number of dimensions. Numerous indicators support our hypothesis that firms with reversals are more likely than others to have managed their earnings. Our results focus on the sample average and hence do not imply that all firms in the reversal samples engage in earnings management. The weight of our evidence raises a strong suspicion that, on average, fourth-quarter reversals reflect earnings management behavior.Overall, our paper contributes to the earnings management literature in general and has specific implications for the target-meeting or -beating literature. Our findings suggest that investors should view late-year changes in general and fourth-quarter earnings reversals in particular with caution. On the basis of our evidence, the fourth-quarter reversal pattern can be used as a heuristic that triggers an inquiry into potential earnings management in conjunction with other indicators, such as discretionary accruals or meeting or beating earnings targets.Incentives to manage annual rather than interim quarters' earnings may be stronger for several reasons. Most bonus and compensation plans based on accounting performance rely on audited annual results rather than not audited quarterly results. Such remuneration schemes provide incentives for managers to manipulate fiscal-year income to achieve preset targets in order to maximize their compensation. The firm's standing in relation to these targets will likely be most clearly apparent in the fourth quarter, thus providing managers with the strongest incentive to manage earnings in the fourth quarter. Furthermore, audited annual earnings may have higher valuation implications if investors attach greater credibility to them relative to interim earnings, providing managers with stronger incentives to manipulate annual earnings.Prior empirical studies provide indirect evidence consistent with managers having stronger incentives to manage earnings at the fiscal year-end. Several of these studies examine the market response to earnings announcements for a broad cross-section of firms and infer whether firms manage earnings differentially across interim and fourth quarters. For example, Kross and Schroeder (1989) and Salamon and Stober (1994) find that the market's reaction to an earnings surprise is lower in the fourth quarter relative to interim quarters. Both studies attribute their findings to earnings management at the fiscal year-end or to the settling up of interim accruals in the fourth quarter.Other empirical studies examine properties of earnings distributions and draw inferences about potential earnings management in the fourth quarter. Jeter and Shivakumar (1999) examine squared abnormal accruals of interim versus fourth quarters and find that the evidence of potential earnings management is greater in the fourth quarter than in interim quarters. Also, the findings of Degeorge, Patel, and Zeckhauser (1999) suggest that the special saliency of annual reports creates additional incentives to manipulate earnings to cross an annual threshold (relative to quarterly thresholds) as reflected by the variation in fourth-quarter earnings. Similarly, Jacob and Jorgensen (2007) show the managers' attempts to avoid losses (earnings decreases), reflected by the discontinuity in the distributions of fiscal-year earnings (earnings changes) at zero, are not observable in annual periods ending in each of the first three fiscal quarters of a year.Unlike prior studies, we do not infer that earnings management occurs on average in the general population of firms. In contrast, we rely on these studies' findings, whichsuggest that earnings management is more likely to occur at fiscal year-end, and examine the pattern of quarterly earnings to identify potential earnings managers who may have timed their efforts to manage annual earnings in the fourth quarter. To corroborate that our identified sample firms are in fact managing earnings, we examine these firms on a number of dimensions that have been offered by prior research as indicators of earnings management.We explore a number of alternative explanations for the fourth-quarter reversal phenomenon. First, it is possible that the reversals are merely incidental and arise as a consequence of the firm's operating and investing decisions. Second, reversal of the sign of earnings change in the fourth quarter relative to interim quarters may be the result of a natural mean-reversion of quarterly earnings. Third, the reversals may be due to a change in the "settling up" of interim accruals in the fourth quarter. Fourth, the reversals may result from earnings management in interim quarters and not in the fourth quarter. We examine the validity of these competing explanations for each of our tests.Recent evidence indicates that managers may also manipulate real activities to avoid reporting annual losses (see Roychowdhury 2006). These activities could include boosting annual sales by offering substantial price discounts or reduction of discretionary expenditures such as plant maintenance and research and development. Unlike accruals manipulation, management of real activities has an effect on the firm's cash flows. Real operating activities are, however, more difficult and costly to manipulate. Thus, although we do not rule out management of operating cash flows, we expect the higher (lower) fourth-quarter earnings of the NP (PN) sample to result mostly from accruals rather than from CFOs.Because earnings management is a manipulation of the timing of revenue and expense recognition, fourth-quarter accrual changes of the reversal samples are expected to be negatively correlated with accrual changes of the immediately following quarters. This follows because inflated (deflated) accruals in one period must be offset by lower (higher) accruals in subsequent periods. Dechow (1994) and Dechow, Kothari, and Watts (1998) show that change in accruals of year t is negatively correlated with change in accruals of year t - 1. If this negative serial correlation in annual accrual changes also holds for quarterly accrual changes, we expect the reversal samples to exhibit this patternsimply because of the accrual reversal property. Hence, we test whether the negative correlation between changes in fourth-quarter accruals and changes in accruals of subsequent quarters is stronger for the reversal samples relative to the control samples. Stronger negative serial correlation in accruals will argue against the alternate hypothesis that the reversal pattern is merely reflecting mean reversion in accruals. If the fourth-quarter reversal occurs because accruals begin to revert to the mean in the fourth quarter, then the trend would continue until they converge to a steady state and we would not expect a strong negative serial correlation between the fourth and subsequent quarters' accruals.We provide evidence on these numerous dimensions to examine whether the reversals reflect earnings management behavior. Our results should be interpreted not as implying that all firms in the reversal samples engaged in earnings management, but as suggestive evidence that these firms are more likely than others to have managed their earnings. We intend for our results to shed light on whether these earnings reversal patterns are suspicious and warrant further investigation.If the earnings reversal pattern reflects accruals manipulation, then we expect other indicators, such as the change in accruals, magnitude of discretionary accruals, and magnitude of special items, to corroborate the higher likelihood of earnings management in the reversal samples relative to the control samples. Because conclusive evidence of earnings management is difficult to provide, we show contrasts between the reversal and control samples on several different dimensions, which may collectively suggest that fourth-quarter reversals reflect efforts to manage earnings.The significant overlap of the samples of firms reporting small profits or small EPS increases with the reversal samples provides an interesting insight. Because much attention has been paid to firms that meet or just beat earnings targets as potential earnings managers, our result sheds light on the manner in which these firms achieve these annual targets. On the basis of the observed kink in earnings distributions at zero, the presumption in previous studies is that firms that meet or just beat earnings targets are likely to have managed earnings upward to avoid reporting a loss or an earnings decrease. Consistent with this belief, we find that a significant number of these firms manage earnings upward in the fourth quarter to offset their poor performance in interim quarters(NP sample). The more intriguing finding that is not adequately considered by prior research is that about one-fourth of the firms that meet or just beat earnings targets appear to smooth annual earnings by managing earnings downward in the fourth quarter (PN sample). This could perhaps explain the finding of Dechow et al. 2003 that small profit and small loss firms have about the same level of discretionary accruals.In conclusion, the paper contributes by establishing that certain intra-year earnings patterns should be viewed with suspicion. From a practical perspective, we propose that fourth-quarter earnings reversals should trigger further investigation into a company's efforts to manage earnings. Because our large-sample analysis can only provide on-average evidence, we recommend that analysts and investors use this approach in conjunction with other indicators of earnings management, such as the direction and size of discretionary accruals and meeting or beating targets.Resource: SOMNATH DAS, PERVIN K. SHROFF, HAIWEN ZHANG．Quarterly Earnings Patterns and Earnings Management．Contemporary Accounting Research, 2009: P797-831.译文：季度收入模式和盈余管理实证研究表明，公司盈余管理以避免报告损失或收入减少还是为了满足分析师的预期。