This paper investigates the subsequent return implications of accruals within a sample of large, developed, international equity markets and assesses whether similar institutional features account for the accrual anomaly across countries. I investigate the returns implications of accruals in 17...

The observed smoothing of earnings (i.e. negative contemporaneous correlation between accruals and cash flows) is the joint product of the role of accruals in smoothing out transitory fluctuations in operating cash flows (noise reduction role) and the role of accruals in providing timely gain...