Prior research shows that a greater level of cumulative accrual earnings management (AEM) over prior periods limits managers' ability to use AEM in the current period and has suggested that this constraint on AEM is associated with greater use of real earnings management (REM). First, we confirm...

This paper finds that inventive activity, as measured by firm-financed R&D expenditures, is procyclical. In addition, the "lost" R&D during recessions is larger than the "extra" R&D during expansions so the overall effect of the business cycle is to reduce firm-financed R&D during the 1957 5o...