(琼斯模型1991)Earnings Management During Import Relief Inves

琼斯模型1991

Accounting Research Center, Booth School of Business, University of Chicago

Earnings Management During Import Relief InvestigationsAuthor(s): Jennifer J. Jones

Source: Journal of Accounting Research, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Autumn, 1991), pp. 193-228

Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of Accounting Research Center, Booth School of Business,

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://doc.guandang.net/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unlessyou have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you

may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained atEach copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@http://doc.guandang.net.

Blackwell Publishing and Accounting Research Center, Booth School of Business, University of Chicago arecollaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Accounting Research.

http://doc.guandang.net

琼斯模型1991

Research Journalof Accounting Vol. 29 No. 2 Autumn1991 Printedin U.S.A.

Earnings Management During Import Relief InvestigationsJENNIFER J. JONES*

1. IntroductionThis study tests whether firms that would benefit from import relief (e.g., tariff increases and quota reductions) attempt to decreaseearnings throughearnings managementduringimport relief investigations by the United States InternationalTrade Commission (ITC). The import relief determination made by the ITC is based on several factors that are specified in the federal trade acts, including the profitability of the industry. Explicit use of accounting numbers in import relief regulation providesincentives for managersto manageearnings in orderto increase the likelihood of obtaining import relief and/or increase the amount of relief granted. While studies of earnings managementtypically examine situations in which all contracting parties have incentives to"perfectly"monitor (adjust)accounting numbers for such manipulation,import relief investigations provide a specific motive for earnings managementthat is not* University of Chicago. I am especially indebted to my dissertation committee, John Bound, Michael Bradley (cochairman

), Michael Maher (cochairman), and Thomas Stober for their assistance and to others who have provided helpful comments, notably an anonymous referee, Victor Bernard, Dean Crawford, Linda DeAngelo, Bruce Ikawa, William Kinney, Richard Leftwich, Robert Lipe, Peter Wilson, David Wright, and workshop participants at Carnegie-Mellon University, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, University of Arizona, University of Chicago, University of Iowa, University of North Carolina, University of Rochester, Washington University, and Wharton School. I am also indebted to Richard Laulor from the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) for his help in obtaining information about the import relief investigation process at the ITC. This paper has been funded by the Institute of Professional Accounting at the University of Chicago and dissertation fellowships from the Arthur Andersen& Co. Foundation and the University of Michigan Dykstra Fund. 193 Research1991 Copyright Journalof Accounting?,

琼斯模型1991

194

JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, AUTUMN 1991

providedin other earnings managementstudies. Importrelief is a wealth transfer from a groupof diffuse losers (consumers)to a groupof concentrated winners (all other contracting parties of domestic producers receiving import relief).' I argue that consumers do not monitor earnings management as effectively as losers examined in other studies because the loss to each consumer is smaller, and their interests more perse, than for the contracting parties examined in these studies.2Regulators have less incentive to adjust for managers'earnings manipulationssince their ultimate payoff for such adjustment is less direct than in other situations previously studied (e.g., union contract negotiations).3 Furthermore, interviews of ITC regulators indicate that the ITC does not adjust financial data for accounting procedures used or for accrual decisions made by firms. This study documents the use of accounting numbers in a federal governmentprogramas a basis for wealth transfers (i.e., import relief). An estimate of the discretionarycomponent of total acruals is used as the measure of earnings management rather than the discretionary component of a single accrual (as used in McNichols and Wilson[1988]). The discretionarycomponent of total accrualsis more appropriate in this context becausethe ITC is interested in earningsbefore taxes, which includes the effects of all accrualaccounts, and, as such, managers are likely to use several accruals to reduce reported earnings. Firmspecific expectations models are developed to estimate normal (nondiscretionary) accruals. The expectations models control for the effects of economic conditions on the level of accruals.I conduct a cross-sectional analysis to test whether estimated discretionaryaccruals (i.e., residuals from the estimated expectations models) tend to be income-decreasing duringthe importrelief investigationperiod.The methodology …… 此处隐藏：41390字，全部文档内容请下载后查看。喜欢就下载吧 ……