Explains why financial analysts could find it useful to separate past earnings into discretionary accruals and earnings before discretionary accruals; referring to related research to develop hypotheses on the effects of both on the change in analysts’ earnings forecasts for the subsequent...

Outlines previous research into the factors influencing managers’ choice of accounting procedures and auditors’ acceptance of them, including regulatory action by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Studies data from 1980‐1996 SEC enforcement actions against big five...

This paper examines the ability of cash flow and earnings based measures of return to assess the differences between target firms and their industries and to explain target firms' abnormal returns during the takeover period. In a sample of 63 completed takeovers over the period 1977 to 1989,...

Theoretical arguments have indicated that long‐term accounting‐based performance plans motivate executives to improve long‐run firm performance (Smith and Watts, 1982; Larcker, 1983). Following conflicting empirical evidence related to the stock market reaction associated with the adoption of...

Performance plans, a form of executive compensation plan, are designed to reward management for improved performance over the long run. Various accounting measures can be used to evaluate this performance: return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), and earnings per share (EPS) are examples....