Discretionary accounting choices and the predictive ability of accruals with respect to future cash flows

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Badertscher, Brad A.; Collins, Daniel W.; Lys, Thomas Z.
• 署名单位: University of Notre Dame; University of Iowa; Northwestern University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING & ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0165-4101
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jacceco.2011.11.003
• 发表日期: 2012
• 关键词: earnings management; INFORMATION; RESTATEMENTS; manipulation; errors; tests

摘要

Using a sample of restatement firms and a meet-or-beat model to classify firms as making discretionary accounting choices for opportunistic meet-or-beat (OP-MB) reasons, we show that originally reported earnings and accrual components are less predictive of future cash flows relative to the restated numbers. We find the opposite is true for firms classified as making discretionary accounting choices for non-OP-MB reasons. We consider a number of competing explanations for these latter results. Our findings are most consistent with the informational hypothesis, weakly consistent with conservative-motivated efficient contracting hypotheses, but inconsistent with opportunistic contracting and misapplication/errors of GAAP explanations. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.