The present study aims to examine the relationship between dividend policy and earnings management by explicitly considering the role of the agency problem and financing constraints. The sample comprises 3250 non-financial Chinese listed firms from 2009 to 2018. This study uses fixed- and random...

Purpose: This study verifies the debt covenant hypothesis by exploring the earnings management of zero-leverage firms that are not constrained by debt covenants. Furthermore, this study investigates whether the earnings management of zero-leverage firms varies depending on financial constraints,...