A vast literature following Hayn [1995] and Burgstahler and Dichev [1997] attributed the so-called “discontinuities” in earnings distributions around zero to earnings management. Despite recent evidence that these discontinuities are likely caused by other factors, researchers and teachers...

A vast literature following Hayn [1995] and Burgstahler and Dichev [1997] attributed the so-called 'discontinuities' in earnings distributions around zero to earnings management. Despite recent evidence that these discontinuities are likely caused by other factors, researchers and teachers...

Accounting research has long claimed that banks time sales of available-for-sale securities to smooth earnings. We find that what the prior literature calls smoothing is more accurately characterized as boosting of low earnings. That is, the “smoothing” behavior is asymmetric, occurring at...

We analyze a set of firms that restated earnings upward because of accounting irregularities and thus presumably had managed earnings downward. Our results are consistent with the restatement sample firms having managed earnings downward in their original financial statements to create cookie...