We investigate whether firms “lean against the wind,” i.e., manage earnings upward to offset aggregate (market wide) undervaluation, by examining how firm-specific measures of earnings management correlate with aggregate market conditions. Leaning against the wind has been proposed by prior...

We examine how heterogeneity in organizational structure affects private firm earnings quality in the European Union. Organizational structure refers to whether the firm is organized as a single legal entity (standalone) or as a business group: the former are firms not controlling or controlled...

This paper uses a new approach to examine whether income smoothing garbles earnings information or improves the informativeness of past and current earnings about future earnings and cash flows. We measure income smoothing by the negative correlation of a firm s change in discretionary accruals...

We examine how heterogeneity in organizational structure affects private firm earnings quality in the European Union. Organizational structure refers to whether the firm is organized as a single legal entity (standalone) or as a business group. Private firms can be organized either way, while...