This paper examines how one aspect of earnings quality - discretionary accruals - affects subsequent capital investment pattern and efficiency. We find that, conditional on investment opportunities, investment in fixed assets in period t is less sensitive to internal cash flows for firms with...

We define accrual duration as the length of time between an accrual and its associated cash flow. Accrual duration and accrual discretion are inextricably linked by the fundamentals of the accrual process because one side of an accrual pair is pinned down by the sign and magnitude of its...

This paper suggests a new measure of one aspect of the quality of accruals and earnings. The major benefit of accruals is to reduce timing and mismatching problems in the underlying cash flows. However, accruals accomplish this benefit at the cost of making assumptions and estimates about future...