Journal ArticleDOI
Earnings Management to Exceed Thresholds
TLDR
In this article, the authors introduce behavioral thresholds for earnings management and show how thresholds induce specific types of earnings management, such as reporting positive profits, sustaining recent performance, and meeting analysts' expectations.Abstract:
Earnings provide important information for investment decisions. Thus, executives--who are monitored by investors, directors, customers, and suppliers--acting in self-interest and at times for shareholders, have strong incentives to manage earnings. The authors introduce behavioral thresholds for earnings management. A model shows how thresholds induce specific types of earnings management. Empirical explorations identify earnings management to exceed each of three thresholds: report positive profits, sustain recent performance, and meet analysts' expectations. The positive profits threshold proves predominant. The future performance of firms suspect for boosting earnings just across a threshold is poorer than that of control group firms. Copyright 1999 by University of Chicago Press.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
The economic implications of corporate financial reporting
TL;DR: This paper found that the majority of managers would avoid initiating a positive NPV project if it meant falling short of the current quarter's consensus earnings, and more than three-fourths of the surveyed executives would give up economic value in exchange for smooth earnings.
Journal ArticleDOI
Earnings management and investor protection: an international comparison
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine systematic differences in earnings management across 31 countries and propose an explanation for these differences based on the notion that insiders, in an attempt to protect their private control benefits, use earnings management to conceal firm performance from outsiders.
Book
Heuristics and Biases: The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment
TL;DR: In this article, a review is presented of the book "Heuristics and Biases: The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment, edited by Thomas Gilovich, Dale Griffin, and Daniel Kahneman".
Journal ArticleDOI
Individual differences in reasoning: Implications for the rationality debate?
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the implica- tions of individual differences in performance for each of the four explanations of the normative/descriptive gap, including performance errors, computational limitations, the wrong norm being applied by the experi- menter, and a different construal of the task by the subject.
Journal ArticleDOI
Mental accounting matters
TL;DR: Mental accounting is the set of cognitive operations used by individuals and households to organize, evaluate, and keep track of financial activities as discussed by the authors, where outcomes are perceived and experienced, and how decisions are made and subsequently evaluated.
References
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Book ChapterDOI
Prospect theory: an analysis of decision under risk
Daniel Kahneman,Amos Tversky +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a critique of expected utility theory as a descriptive model of decision making under risk, and develop an alternative model, called prospect theory, in which value is assigned to gains and losses rather than to final assets and in which probabilities are replaced by decision weights.
BookDOI
Density estimation for statistics and data analysis
TL;DR: The Kernel Method for Multivariate Data: Three Important Methods and Density Estimation in Action.
Book
The Strategy of Conflict
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose a theory of interdependent decision based on the Retarded Science of International Strategy (RSIS) for non-cooperative games and a solution concept for "noncooperative" games.
Journal ArticleDOI
An empirical evaluation of accounting income numbers
Ray Ball,Philip Brown +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, it is argued that income numbers cannot be defined substantively, that they lack "meaning" and are therefore of doubtful utility, and the argument stems in part from the patchwork development of account-based theories.
Book
Economics, Organization and Management
Paul Milgrom,John Roberts +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, a systematic treatment of the economics of the modern firm is presented, drawing on the insights of a variety of areas in modern economics and other disciplines, but presenting a coherent, consistent, and innovative treatment of central problems in organizations of motivating people and coordinating their activities.