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。