Using a unique database of monthly advertising spending in media outlets, we examine whether managers engage in real earnings management to meet quarterly financial reporting benchmarks. We extend prior literature by: (1) separately analyzing advertising activities, allowing us to explore novel...

We examine the information role of accounting disclosures on warranties, utilizing a database that became available due to the requirements of FIN 45. First, because firms use warranty policies as a business strategy to promote their products, a warranty reserve can serve two roles: an...

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...

Considering the voluminous published research confirming and extending the original findings of Cohen, Dey, Lys (2008), we conclude that Pincus, Wu, and Hwang (2022, this issue) make, at best, only a modest contribution to the earnings management literature. Specifically, their analysis does not...