Master’s thesis accounting, auditing and control
Equity incentives and earnings management
In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Science in Economics and Business
Erasmus University Rotterdam
Department:
Business Economics
Section:
Accounting, Auditing & Control
Course code:
FEM 11032‐11
Supervisor:
Dr. C.D. Knoops
Written by:
Winfred Damler
Student nr:
295272
Date:
July 2012
2
Abstract
This master’s thesis examines the relation between equity incentives and earnings
management. It extends prior research by providing a more detailed insight on the
relation between discretionary accruals and equity incentives. The study finds evidence
for a significant relation between discretionary accruals calculated by a linear Kothari
accrual model and equity incentives, in a pre‐Sarbanes Oxley sample. It shows that this
relation is stronger for CFO equity incentives than for CEO equity incentives. The study
finds a significant positive relation between earnings management and total equity
incentives; it also shows such a positive relation for option‐based equity incentives. For
stock‐based equity incentives no such positive relation is found. The third finding is that
the relation between earnings management and equity incentives changes before and
after the major accounting scandals and introduction of the Sarbanes Oxley act.
Abbreviations
CEO
Chief executive officer
CFO
Chief financial officer
GAAP
Generally accepted accounting principles
IRS
Internal revenue service
M&A
Mergers and acquisitions
ROA
Return on assets
R&D
Research and Development
SEC
Securities and Exchange Commission
SIC
Standard industry classification
SOX
Sarbanes Oxley act
US
United States of America
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Table of Contents
ABSTRACT
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
2
ABBREVIATIONS
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
2
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION …………………………………………………………………………………………………………
5
1.1 INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 5
1.2 PURPOSE OF THE THESIS AND RESEARCH QUESTION
……………………………………………………………………………….. 8
1.3 RELEVANCE AND CONTRIBUTION ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 9
1.4 STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
10
CHAPTER 2 EARNINGS MANAGEMENT, THE THEORY
……………………………………………………………. 11
2.1 INTRODUCTION AND THE REASON FOR EARNINGS MANAGEMENT ………………………………………………………….
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2.2 WHAT DO WE CONSIDER EARNINGS MANAGEMENT? ……………………………………………………………………………..
13
2.3 MEASURING EARNINGS MANAGEMENT WITH ACCRUALS
………………………………………………………………………..
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2.4 WHO COMMITS EARNINGS MANAGEMENT? ……………………………………………………………………………………………
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2.5 SUMMARY DEFINITION EARNINGS MANAGEMENT
………………………………………………………………………………….
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CHAPTER 3 ACCRUAL MODELS
………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 20
3.1 ACCRUALS ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
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3.2 THE HEALY MODEL 1985
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
22
3.3 THE DE ANGELO MODEL 1986
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
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3.4 JONES MODEL 1991
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
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3.5 MODIFIED JONES MODEL 1995 ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
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3.6 TIME‐SERIES VERSUS CROSS SECTIONAL JONES MODELS
………………………………………………………………………..
27
3.6.1 Time‐Series designs with the Jones model
…………………………………………………………………………………….28
3.6.2 Cross‐sectional designs with the Jones model
………………………………………………………………………………29
3.7 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BALANCE SHEET ACCRUALS AND CASH FLOW ACCRUALS
…………………………………..
30
3.8 IMPROVED VERSIONS OF THE JONES MODEL …………………………………………………………………………………………..
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3.9 THE FORWARD‐LOOKING MODEL 2003 …………………………………………………………………………………………………
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3.10 CASH FLOW JONES MODEL 2002 …………………………………………………………………………………………………………
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3.11 LARCKER AND RICHARDSON 2004 ……………………………………………………………………………………………………..
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3.12 PERFORMANCE MATCHING MODEL 2005 ……………………………………………………………………………………………
38
3.13 THE BUSINESS MODEL 2007 ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
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3.14 RECENT LITERATURE ON ACCRUAL MODELS ………………………………………………………………………………………..
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3.15 CHAPTER 3 SUMMARY………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
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CHAPTER 4 ESTIMATING THE EQUITY INCENTIVES
………………………………………………………………. 47
4.1 BOUNDARIES OF BONUS SCHEMES…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
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4.2 MAXIMIZING EARNINGS IN JAPAN
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
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4.3 PROXY FOR EQUITY INCENTIVES …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
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4.4 SUMMARY ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
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CHAPTER 5 EMPIRICAL RESEARCH ON EARNINGS MANAGEMENT DUE TO EQUITY
INCENTIVES ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 50
5.1 INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
50
5.2 REMUNERATION …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
50
5.3 EQUITY INCENTIVES ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
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5.4 CEO AND CFO EQUITY INCENTIVES ……………………………………………………………………………………………………….
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5.5 SUMMARY ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
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CHAPTER 6 HYPOTHESIS
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 66
6.1 HYPOTHESIS 1 ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
66
6.2 HYPOTHESIS 2 ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
66
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6.3 HYPOTHESIS 3 ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
66
6.4 HYPOTHESIS 4 ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
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CHAPTER 7 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
…………………………………………………………… 69
7.1 INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
69
7.2 ACCRUAL MODEL ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
69
7.3 MEASURE FOR EQUITY INCENTIVES
………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
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7.4 ESTIMATING THE RELATION BETWEEN EARNINGS MANAGEMENT AND EQUITY INCENTIVES …………………
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7.5 SAMPLE ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
73
7.6 DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
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CHAPTER 8 FINDINGS …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 79
8.1 INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
79
8.2 HYPOTHESIS 1 ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
82
8.3 HYPOTHESIS 2 ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
83
8.4 HYPOTHESIS 3 ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
85
8.5 HYPOTHESIS 4 ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
86
8.6 SUMMARY ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
88
CHAPTER 9 LIMITATIONS ………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 90
CHAPTER 10 CONCLUSION
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 93
SUMMARY AND MAIN CONCLUSIONS
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93
RECOMMENDATIONS
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
93
BIBLIOGRAPHY ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 95
APPENDIX 1 ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 97
APPENDIX 2 ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 99
APPENDIX 3 …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………100
APPENDIX 4 …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………101
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Chapter 1 introduction
1.1 Introduction
Management compensation has been a much‐discussed item over the last decade.
Different accounting scandals, like Enron, Ahold and Parmalat have damaged trust in
executive managers and financial reports. Due to these scandals, there has been a lot of
discussion about remuneration of executives. Stock and option‐based compensation has
increased strongly during the 1980’s and the 1990’s (Bergstresser & Philippon, 2006).
Before that time managers had little or no incentive to maximize the firms performance.
Since that time the use of equity incentives has increased for a number of reasons. The
most obvious reason is to align the interests of the owners and the managers of
companies. Because interests of managers deviated from the interests of the owners of
firms, firms were not effectively managed from an owner’s point of view. An example of
this management behavior that is not line with owner’s interests is the fruitless “empire‐
building” as described in the study by Jensen (1991); too many mergers and takeovers
led to large firms, instead of enhancing performance this led to declining corporate
efficiency and destroying value.
Until the 1980’s not much performance enhancing incentives were provided to
management, this led to behavior from managers that was not in line with the interests
of stockholders. To provide management with an incentive to increase firm performance
companies started using more equity‐based incentives. Mehran’s (1995) study
demonstrates that providing performance enhancing incentives can work; his study
shows that firm performance is enhanced by providing management with stock or
option‐based compensation. Not only equity‐based incentives were introduced,
performance related bonuses where introduced as well. While the purpose of stock and
option‐based compensation plans was to align the interest of management with the
interests of the owners of the company, this also opened the door to opportunistic
behavior from management, as they could influence their remuneration by maximizing
the performance of the company. Healy (1985) is one of the first to provide proof that
managers use earnings management techniques to maximize their income.
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Due to accounting scandals rewarding executives with equity incentives has become a
much‐discussed topic. For this discussion it is important to know what the effects of
equity incentives are, and how the relation between earnings management and equity
incentives works. This master’s thesis examines this relation for a sample of large firms
that are listed in the United States and are part of the S&P 500.
A first aspect this master’s thesis focuses on is the difference between CEO and CFO
equity incentives. Much of the prior research on this subject has focused on the relation
between the total equity incentives rewarded to the CEO and earnings management. But
there is more in it than just that. It is very well possible that the CFO has more influence
on accounting and accrual decisions than the CEO. As the CFO is the one responsible for
the financial administration of the firm and he is the one in charge of composing the
financial statements. Therefore it is useful to examine the relation between equity
incentives and earnings management for both the CEO and the CFO as it might be
possible that awarding equity incentives to the CFO, who is responsible for the financial
statements leads to more earnings management than equity incentives awarded to the
CEO, as the CEO cannot influence the financial statements as directly as the CFO can.
A second aspect this study examines is the effects of the different kinds of equity
incentives. Executives can be rewarded with different equity incentives, it is likely that
these different incentives have different effects on the behavior of the executives
because the characteristics of the equity incentives differ. There are more remuneration
incentives that can have an influence on management behavior like bonuses; this
master’s thesis will be limited to equity incentives. Equity incentives can be based on
stocks or derivates from stock, like options. This master’s thesis focuses on share‐ and
option‐based incentives. An important characteristic of options is that most options
have an expiration date, after this date the option has no value anymore. As a result
options are relatively short time incentives. Options motivate managers to increase
earnings until the expiration date of the options. Due to this, option incentives are by
definition incentives to increase short‐term firm performance. Stock‐based incentives
have no expiration date; a manager can benefit from both short‐ and long‐term firm
performance. As stocks do not have an expiration data they are a more permanent
incentive than options, the incentive only ends if the shares are sold. Another
characteristic of options is that executives can benefit from an increase in the stock price
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due to earnings management, but that his wealth does not suffer much if the stock price
declines (Burns & Kedia, 2006). Therefore option‐based incentives can lead to managers
taking more risk and to use earnings management, as their wealth is not affected so
much if things go wrong. This is different for share‐based incentives.
A third aspect this study looks into is the change over time of the relation between
equity incentives and earnings management. Scandals like Enron and Ahold at the start
of the last decade have led to heaps of public attention on management compensation;
this might have led to companies changing their remuneration policies in order to keep
their reputation intact. Another reaction is that the scandals have led to legislation on
reporting details of management compensation. An example of such legislation is the
Sarbanes Oxley act in 2002. Some of the managers involved in accounting scandals have
been convicted, this in combination with new legislation and more public attention on
the subject may have led to a situation where managers are more careful to use earnings
management. They are more in the spotlight these days and are possibly more aware of
the consequences of earnings management. I examine the relation between earnings
management and equity incentives over a 10 years period. Starting in 1999, two years
before the major accounting scandals, until 2009. It is useful to examine if the relation
between earnings management and equity incentives changes over time, as it indicates
the effect changes following the accounting scandals have had. It is possible that
companies use different forms of remuneration nowadays, for instance more long‐term
incentives. This change in equity incentives is probably due to the accounting scandals
of the early 2000’s. In the 1980’s and 1990’s option‐based equity incentives were the
most important equity incentives, I expect however that the use of options as equity
incentives has declined and that share‐based equity incentives are more important
nowadays. This expectation is supported by the Global Equity incentives survey by PWC
(2011). This survey shows that performance‐based shares and share units are now more
used than stock options. It could also be the fact that managers do not want to use
earnings management too much anymore as they are afraid for the consequences. It is
useful to see if and how managers and firms reacted to the changed situation or that
there is not much difference between 1999 and 2009 despite all the changes in the
environment.
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1.2 Purpose of the thesis and research question
This master’s thesis examines the relation between earnings management and equity
incentives. I intend to more precisely examine if this relation is different for incentives
awarded to the CEO and the CFO and if there are different effects for option‐ and stock‐
based equity incentives. I examine this relation over a ten‐year period (1999‐2009)
covering major accounting scandals, the years preceding these scandals and the
aftermath of those scandals. This leads to a more detailed insight on the effect of equity
incentives and provides information on the effect of measures taken in response to
accounting scandals on the relation between earnings management and equity
incentives.
My main research question is:
What is the relation between earnings management and equity incentives awarded to
CEO’s and CFO’s?
To analyze this relation further I examine the following sub questions:
‐
Is this relation different for incentives awarded to a CFO than for incentives
awarded to a CEO?
‐
Does this relation defer for stock or option‐based incentives?
‐
Do these relations change in the 10 years period from 1999 to 2009?
The goal of this master’s thesis is to provide more detailed insight in the relation
between earnings management and equity incentives. By answering these research
questions I provide insight in the difference in the relation between earnings
management and equity incentives for the CEO and the CFO. Much of the previous
research has focused on this relation for the CEO only, while this relation for the CFO
might even be stronger. One can imagine that the CFO has a big influence on accounting
decisions. As the CFO is responsible for the financial statements it might not be a good
idea that his personal wealth depends on the earnings of the company. Because the
financial administration is the responsibility of the CFO it could be that the CFO is the
manager who takes most of the accounting decisions. Therefore it could be the fact that
equity incentives for CFO’s have more influence on earnings management than equity
incentives for CEO’s. One could argue that it would be wise to have a CFO whose
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personal wealth does not depend on firm performance. Especially in a situation where
the CEO’s remuneration does depend on the performance of the company this could be
important. The financially independent CFO can in such a situation prevent the CEO
from opportunistic behavior. This master’s thesis examines if there is a positive relation
between earnings management and equity incentives for the CFO and if this relation is
stronger or weaker than the relation of the CEO.
As mentioned in the previous section stock and option‐based equity incentives may have
a different effect than share‐based incentives. Because option‐based incentives are
expected to provide a short‐term incentive due to the expiration date of the options
while the incentive for stock‐based remuneration has a more long‐term effect as stocks
do not have such an expiration date.
The third sub question focuses on the change of this relation over time; it provides
information if the relations described above have changed over the years and if the
measures taken in the aftermath of accounting scandals had an effect on these relations.
For this I examine a sample of companies that are part of the S&P 500 as the needed
data is available for these companies in the “compustat” database. I use an accrual model
to measure earnings management and compare this accrual model with the dependence
of a manager’s income on the stock price. This master’s thesis contains a literature study
that covers prior research on measuring earnings management and equity incentives
and it contains an empirical research to answer the research question.
1.3 Relevance and contribution
This master’s thesis contributes to the field of research because it provides a more
specified insight in the relation between equity incentives and earnings management.
Where much of the prior research focused on the role of the CEO and at equity
incentives as a whole, this master’s thesis examines the role of the CEO and the CFO and
examines whether short‐term option‐based incentives have different effects on the
behavior of management than stock‐based incentives.
The second point why this master’s thesis is relevant is that it helps understanding the
relations between equity incentives and earnings management in more detail. This
makes it possible to provide managers in the future with adequate remuneration plans
that will maximize their productivity but do not create an incentive for opportunistic
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behavior. It provides knowledge needed, not only to create better future remuneration
plans but also to provide information that is useful in the discussion around
management remuneration and creating legislation on management remuneration.
This master’s thesis also provides insight in the question if the relation between equity
incentives and earnings management has changed due to accounting scandals and the
measures taken in the aftermath of these scandals. It shows whether the scandals and
the measures taken after these scandals have changed the effect of equity incentives and
it will show if this is different for short‐term option‐based incentives and for the more
long‐term stock‐based incentives. It helps to analyze the effect of legislation and other
measures taken considering management remuneration.
1.4 Structure of the thesis
To examine the subject and to find an answer to the research question this master’s
thesis proceeds as follows: Chapter two discusses what earnings management entails
and why it can be triggered by equity incentives. Chapter three and four describe the
literature on measuring earnings management with accruals accounting and measuring
equity incentives respectively. Chapter five presents the hypotheses for the empirical
part of the master’s thesis, chapter six discusses the methodology and the research
design and the sample used. Chapter seven presents the results of the empirical
research and chapter eight discusses the limitations of the research. The last chapter,
chapter nine, presents the conclusions, a summary and recommendations for further
research.
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Chapter 2 earnings management, the theory
2.1 introduction and the reason for earnings management
In this chapter I discuss: what earnings management is, why it exists, how it can be
measured and who uses earnings management. In this master’s thesis I look at earnings
management by board members. To understand the idea of earnings management it is
important to know why people take the effort to manage these earnings.
A well‐known theory on decision‐making is the utility maximizing theory. This theory
was designed in the 18th and 19th century by Jeremey Benthem (1789) and John Steward
Mill (1863). It says that society has as ultimate goal to maximize the utility of all
individual members of society. Individual members of society will maximize their own
utility; therefore a manager also looks to maximize his own utility. How the utility of a
manager is maximized will differ from person to person.
For a manager of a company who is trying to maximize his utility different factors might
be important, for instance: his social status, the fact that he wants to keep his job, his
remuneration and the amount of effort he has to put in his job. For these factors other
underlying factors might be important: For his social status it might be important the
company does well or that the press writes positive articles about the company. For his
remuneration it might be important the company is profitable or that the stock price
rises.
Another theory that comes into play is the ‘Agency Theory’ originally introduced by
Adam Smith (Smith, 1776). This thesis considers publicly held companies, in those
companies there is a possible difference in interest between the owners of the company
and the managers. In a publicly held company the owner, or owners, are the
stockholders. I assume that in a publicly held company it are the managers who take
most of the decisions. Because the managers and the owners are often different people
there can be a difference of interest between he manager (the agent) and the owner (the
principal). Both want to maximize their personal utility, but as their interests are not
always in line this can lead to difficulties. Because the utility maximizing manager does
not what the owners of the company, who hire the manager, want him to do. This is
called the principal agent dilemma (Jensen & Meckling, 1976). One of the solutions used
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to mitigate this problem is to try to align the interest of the principal and the agent. A
common way to do this is to provide management with stock and option‐based
remuneration.1 Thereby a part of their remuneration depends on the performance of the
company on the stock markets. This brings the interests of the management more in line
with the interest of the owners of the company, who are also dependent on the
performance on the stock marked. The idea is that a manger whose interests are in line
with the interests of the owner of the company makes decisions that are beneficial from
the owners’ point of view. In this situation maximizing stock value or paying dividends
is now favorable for both managers and owners.
In this master’s thesis I look at managers who, as I assume, want to maximize their
remuneration. In line with Healy’s earnings maximizing hypothesis (Healy, The effect of
bonus schemes on accounting decisions, 1985). A manager will try to maximize his own
wealth despite possible negative effects for the company. We look at the case where the
remuneration depends for a certain amount on the stock price of the company. In this
master’s thesis I focus on equity‐based remuneration in the form of stocks and options.
There are however other ways to bring managers interest more in line with that of the
owner of the company, for instance bonuses that depend on the performance of the
company or on the relative performance of the company in a peer group.
A manager who wants to maximize his remuneration will, if the height of his
remuneration correlates strongly with the stock price, try to maximize the stock price.
As I assume the stock price depends on the performance of the company, as earnings are
an important indicator for the company’s performance the manager will try to maximize
the earnings, because this is in line with his interest2. He maximizes his utility by
maximizing the company’s stock price. Mehran (1995) finds that this actually works. He
finds that: “firm performance is positively related to the share of equity held by
managers, and the share of management compensation that is equity‐based”.
On the other hand if his remuneration does not depend so strongly on the company’s
stock price the manager might be driven by other incentives. He might maximize his
utility in another way and not spend so much effort on maximizing the stock price. He
1 See Hall and Liebman (1998), who find that the effect of the value of a firm on the wealth of the CEO has
tripled between 1980 and 1994.
2 See Ronen and Yaari (2008), chapter 1, for the question why earnings are important.
13
then might choose to spend more time relaxing, spending time with his family or reach
other targets that for instance increase his bonus or status. This does not mean that in
those cases he will not use earnings management. Remuneration is not the only
incentive that could lead to earnings management. Other well‐known examples are:
earnings management to keep within the limits of contracts, for example debt contracts.
A company might want to reach a certain level of performance to prevent it has to pay a
higher interest rate (Stolowy & Breton, 2004). Another reason for earnings management
can be that a company wants to maintain a stable dividend policy or just present a stable
performance over time, therefore they might use income smoothing (I explain income
smoothing later in this chapter). An example of this is provided in a study of Kasanen,
Kinunnen and Niskanen (1996); they provide evidence of earnings management in
Finland to keep dividend payment up with the expectations of their large institutional
shareholders. Stolowy and Breton (2004) also state that some managers manage the
earnings down to pay less tax or to obey certain regulations.
In this thesis I assume that a manager whose remuneration depends on the company’s
stock price wants to present earnings the best way possible. He might be able to do this
by working very hard to try to use the firms’ potential to a maximum, and therefore be
able to present a proper profit. However he can also (next to this) try to manage the
earnings so he can present them in the best (to his interests) possible way. This is called
earnings management. In section 2.2 I discuss the definition of earnings management.
2.2 What do we consider earnings management?
There is a vast amount of literature about what is considered earnings management. In
this section I discuss this literature and come to a definition of earnings management
that I use in this paper.
Earnings management has different names, some stand for special kinds of earnings
management; others contain all sorts of earnings management. Stolowy & Breton (2004)
present a framework to understand accounts manipulation. They use accounts
manipulation as the general term. Illegal accounts manipulation is called fraud, accounts
manipulation within boundaries of the law is divided into earnings management (in a
broad sense) and creative accounting. Earnings management in the broad sense exists of
income smoothing, big bath accounting and earnings management (narrow sense). Their
definition of accounts manipulation is:
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“ The use of management’s discretion to make accounting choices or to design transactions
so as to affect the possibilities of wealth transfer between the company and society
(political costs), funds providers (cost of capital) or managers (compensation plans).”
To my opinion it is often difficult to determine when accounts manipulation is legal or
not. It is even more difficult to determine whether the managers’ intentions are
opportunistic or not. This is due to the discretion managers have and the flexibility in
accounting regulations. As accounting is no exact science there is no absolute truth,
management has a certain degree of freedom use accrual accounting and to design the
transactions they make. Stolowy and Breton (2004) describe that: “When accounts
manipulation is used, the financial position and the results of operations do not fall into
the fair presentation category of the figure below”. That does not directly mean that the
actions are illegal. According to Stolowy and Breton (2004): “To be legal, interpretations
may be in keeping with the spirit of the standard, or at the other extreme, clearly stretch
that spirit while remaining within the letter of the law. They may be erroneous, but
never fraudulent”.
Figure 1
Stolowy and Breton 2004
Thereby it is to my opinion important to know why someone took a certain decision
before you can say if something is done legally or illegally. There are many different
definitions of earnings management Ronen and Yaari (2008) divide a couple of these
definitions in three groups: white, gray and black. In the white group: earnings
management is taking advantage of the flexibility in choice of accounting treatment to
15
signal the manager’s private information on future cash flows. In the gray group:
earnings management is choosing an accounting treatment that is either opportunistic
(maximizing the utility of management only) or economically efficient, maximizing the
utility of the firm. In the black group: Earnings management is the practice of using
tricks to misrepresent or reduce transparency of the financial reports (Ronen & Yaari,
2008). This indicates there are many different views on earnings management. As I use
accrual accounting in this thesis it is good to look at a definition that uses accrual
accounting.
Dechow & Skinner (2000) explain earnings management from the perspective of accrual
accounting. Accrual accounting tries to relate expenses, income, revenues, gains and
losses to a certain period. This is done to provide better or more complete information
about a company’s performance. In order to do this, choices have to be made to allocate
certain cash flows to certain periods. Revenues and costs have to be matched and
choices about depreciation of investments have to be made. The good thing about
accrual accounting is that it provides better information about the company’s
performance. The reported earnings using accruals accounting will be smoother and; if
done well, will provide a more realistic view of a company’s performance than the
underlying cash flows (Dechow & Skinner, 2000). On the hind side the choices made with
accrual accounting influence the view, this makes the financial statements subjective.
People who make the financial statements have an influence on the outcome; it is often
difficult to say whether they are trying to provide a realistic view or that they have other
plans with the financial statements. This can be a dangerous side of accrual accounting.
This is the grey area I mentioned before in this section. It is almost impossible to see
whether managers who use accruals accounting make choices that help investors get a
realistic view of the performance of the company or that they make choices that are in
their own interest. Because there are a lot of accrual decisions to be made it is difficult to
monitor whether this is correctly done. As the choices are subjective there is no absolute
truth. Therefore there is a very vague and thin line. It depends on your definition of
earnings management from what point you call this earnings management.
Healy & Wahlen (1999) give a definition on earnings management in line with this. They
do not mention the fact whether earnings management is legal or not. They set the line
16
at the point where the accounting decisions are no longer made to give a realistic view
of the company’s performance:
“Earnings management occurs when managers use judgment in financial reporting and in
structuring transactions to alter financial reports to either mislead some stakeholders
about the underlying economic performance of the company, or to influence contractual
outcomes that depend on reported accounting numbers”
This is therefore in my opinion a good definition of earnings management. However
Ronen and Yaari (2008) who call this definition of earnings management the best
definition in the literature point out two weak points in this definition. The first one is
that this definition does not set a clear boundary between earnings management and
normal activities that have an influence on earnings. The second point is that earnings
management does not have to be misleading, certainly not all the earnings management.
An example of this is that investors would like to see persistent earnings separated form
one‐time shocks. Therefore firms manage earnings in order to allow investors to
distinguish between the two sorts of earnings (Ronen & Yaari, 2008).
Ronen and Yaari (2008) present a definition of earnings management that takes these
weaknesses into account. Their definition is:
“Earnings management is a collection of managerial decisions that result in not reporting
the true short‐term, value‐maximizing earnings as known to management.
Earnings management can be:
Beneficial: it signals long‐term value;
Pernicious: it conceals short‐ or long‐term value;
Neutral: it reveals the short‐term true performance.
The managed earnings result from taking production/investment actions before earnings
are realized, or making accounting choices that affect the earnings numbers and their
interpretation after the true earnings are realized.”
Although maybe more complete I consider the definition of Healy and Wahlen (1999)
more clear because it is more concise and therefore better to understand.
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There are different forms of earnings management, sometimes with different names that
fall under the broader definition of earnings management. These are for example:
income smoothing, big bath accounting, creative accounting and earnings management
due to accrual accounting. For more information about these different kinds of earnings
management see amongst others: Stolowy and Breton (2004), Ronen and Yaari (2008)
and Healy (1985).
2.3 Measuring earnings management with accruals
There are different ways to indicate earnings management. In this thesis I focus on
earnings management indicated by accruals. Accruals are defined as the difference
between the reported net income and the cash flow of a company. Each company has
accruals; that is perfectly normal. How much accruals a company normally has depends
amongst other things on the size of the company. Examples of accruals that each
company has are accruals due to depreciations or normal income smoothing (following
accounting rules). A part of the accruals are subjective, like the valuation of assets for
example or they can be influenced by management. These accruals are called the
discretionary accruals. The discretionary accruals are the accruals that indicate earnings
management.
Accruals accounting is something that is normally used in everyday practice. Accruals
are therefore not always wrong or suspected. A manager uses accruals to transfer the
company’s cash flows into an annual profit or loss. Without accruals this would not be
possible as I explained before. Accruals can also be used for the more dark sides of
earnings management, for instance to make a company’s performance look better than it
is, this is what happened at Enron. A danger of accrual accounting is that it is vulnerable
for opportunistic behavior.
Healy (1985) started a discussion on measuring earnings management with accruals
and the effect of management incentives on earnings management.. After Healy’s article
much has been written about the subject. People have designed different models to
indicate earnings management with accruals and to calculate accruals the best way
possible. In the next chapter I take a closer look at some of these models. I discuss the
early Healy (1985) and d’Angelo (1986) models, The Jones (1991) and modified Jones
model (1995) and a number of models that refine and improve the Jones and modified
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Jones models. As the forward‐looking model by Dechow et al. (2003), the Kothari et al.
(2005) performance model and the syntheses model by Ye (2007).
2.4 Who commits earnings management?
When looking at the relation between equity incentives and earnings management it is
important to realize who are the people that take the accrual decisions. Bergstresser and
Philippon (2006) find proof for a positive relation between CEO equity incentives and
earnings management.
Jiang, Petroni and Wang (2010) find that the equity incentives for de CFO are more
important than equity incentives given to a CEO. Because the CFO is the one responsible
for presenting the annual numbers in a reliable way you could argue that it would not be
a good idea that his personal wealth depends on the way he presents the accounting
report of the company. As Katz (2006) describes IRS commissioner Mark Everson
suggested in front of the Senate committee that CFO’s should be rewarded with a fixed
payment.
It is important when using equity incentives to know how decisions are made within a
company. Because with this knowledge incentives can be used in a more effective way,
whether these are equity‐based or not. It probably differs from company to company
how decisions are made. In companies with a very strong CEO the rest of the
management might not have so much influence. But as one might imagine there are
other companies that work more on basis of mutual consensus or where for instance;
the rest of the board does not bother about the financial part and leaves that to the CFO.
Taken this into account it is important not to focus solely on the CEO when looking at
earnings management. Because it is possible other members of the board can be
triggered by equity incentives as well.
2.5 Summary Definition earnings management
In the first chapter of this master’s thesis I discuss what earnings management is, why
managers use earnings management, and which people use earnings management. I also
discuss earnings management that is due to accrual accounting, as it is that form of
earnings management I use in my master’s thesis. It is important to understand that
accrual accounting is not per definition something that is bad. It is used in everyday
practice; to translate the cash flows into an annual profit or loss. A problem can be that
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accrual accounting is sensitive for opportunistic behavior. As discussed managers strive
to maximize their own utility. By granting them equity incentives their utility becomes
dependent on the stock price. It then depends of the manager, how far he will go to
maximize his utility, if he is opportunistic he can use earnings management to generate
more income for himself. As equity incentives are rewarded to more people than the
CEO alone it is important to think about which people have influence on the accounting
numbers, to know how incentives can be rewarded in a more effective way. While at the
same time lowering the risk of opportunistic behavior.
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Chapter 3 accrual models
This chapter discusses literature on how accruals are used to measure earnings
management. Measuring accruals has developed over time; in this chapter I discuss how
the methods to measure earnings management have developed from simple models
measuring total accruals to more complex models separating accruals in discretionary
and non‐discretionary accruals while taking into account characteristics of the firm and
its environment.
When using earnings management managers try to influence the accounting numbers of
a firm. They can do this by using real transaction‐based earnings management.
Examples of real transaction‐based earnings management are: “providing price
discounts or cutting discretionary expenses” (Bartov & Cohen, 2008). While doing that,
the profit will increase but it does not say much about the real performance of the
company. These methods are easy to detect for analysts and stakeholders. Another
method to influence the accounting numbers is using accrual accounting, this method is
more difficult to detect. Measuring earnings management by using accrual accounting is
discussed in this chapter.
3.1 Accruals
The earnings of a company contain cash flows and accruals.
Earnings = cash flow + accruals
Management can influence accrual accounting. Management has a certain degree of
discretion
when
making
accruals
decisions.
This
discretion
can
be
used
opportunistically. Accrual accounting has to be used according to accounting regulations
as IFRS. Accrual accounting in itself is therefore not mischievous but it can be used in an
opportunistic way. The alternative for accrual accounting is cash flow accounting. Cash
flow accounting is not in line with the accounting rules. Managers can influence accrual
decisions to their own interest. An example of this is maximizing their bonus as
described in the thesis by Watts and Zimmerman (1986)
Examples of influencing the accounting report using accrual manipulation are for
instance:
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Trade receivables: the account “trade receivables” is subjective, because management
has to estimate the amount of the receivables that will actually be paid and the amount
that is qualified as bad debt. Management can therefore manipulate the valuation of this
item, for instance by changing the bad debt policy.
Stock: Another highly subjective item on the balance sheet is stock. The valuation of the
trade stock can be influenced, managers can decide whether it is necessary to depreciate
the stock or not.
Current assets: Current assets can be used to move cost to a subsequent period, by
capitalizing a certain amount instead of taking the costs at once.
Fixed assets: fixed assets as real estate, machines and other equipment have to be
measured. This can be subjective. Besides that, certain costs related to the fixed assets
can be capitalized and depreciated at the discretion of management.
For example: A manager wants to manipulate the company’s profit in a certain year
because he wants to maximize the value of his equity incentives; the manager can decide
to change the bad debt policy. By changing the bad debt policy a manager can classify a
smaller or larger amount of the debt as bad debt. Thereby he is able to manage the
earnings of the firm upwards or downwards.
Mohanram (2003) defines accruals as the revenues and costs that make up the difference
between the reported profit as the cash flow of the company. Accounting profit can be
divided into three parts: the operational cash flow, the non‐discretionary accruals and
the discretionary accruals. Therefore:
Earnings = cash flow + normal accruals + discretionary accruals
Discretionary accruals = earnings – cash flow – normal accruals
The non‐discretionary accruals are accounting changes that are imposed by accounting
regulations. For instance booking expenses at the moment they are realized according to
accounting regulations but before the cash flow takes place. The discretionary accruals
are the accounting decisions the manager can influence. He can for example decide if he
wants to capitalize cost related to the fixed assets and decide how he depreciates these
capitalized costs. These accruals are therefore called discretionary; the discretionary
accruals are used to measure earnings management. As discretionary accruals are used
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as measure for earnings management one has to separate these accruals from the total
earnings. There are different models designed that try to separate accruals or
discretionary accruals from total accounting profit. Some of the early models only
separate earnings in total accruals and the operating cash flow. Later models also
separate discretionary accruals from the non‐discretionary accruals. In the following
sections of this master’s thesis I discuss the different models used to separate accruals
from the total profit.
3.2 The Healy model 1985
Healy’s (1985) model is one of the first accrual models. Healy measures earnings
management while using accruals. He tries to find evidence for earnings management
around the top and bottom level of bonus schemes. He expects that managers, with
bonus schemes that depend on the company’s profit, influence the profit in a way that
maximizes the manager’s bonus.
Healy (1985) defines accruals as the difference between reported earnings and the
operational cash flow. He uses total accruals as indicator for discretionary accruals, as
he does not separate the total accruals in discretionary and non‐discretionary accruals.
He states it is not possible to identify the non‐discretionary accruals. He does separate
the total accruals into “normal” accruals and “abnormal” accruals. He uses the abnormal
accruals as proxy for discretionary accruals
Total accruals are estimated by the difference between reported accounting earnings
and cash flow from operations (Healy, The effect of bonus schemes on accounting
decisions, 1985):
TAi,t = ( CAi,t – CLi,t – Cashi,t + STDi,t – Depi,t) / Ai,t – 1
TAi,t
Total accruals of firm i at time t
CAi,t
The change in the current assets of firm i at time t
CLi,
The change in current liabilities of firm i at time t
Cashi,t
The change in cash holdings of firm i at time t
STDi,t
The change in long term debt in current liabilities of firm i at time t
Depi,t
Depreciation and amortization expense of the firm of firm i at time t
Ai,t – 1
Lagged size (in assets) of firm i at time t‐1
Healy (1985) estimates the “abnormal” accruals as the difference of the total accruals of
the current year and the “normal” accruals of that year. The “normal” accruals are the
average total accruals of the years prior to the current year scaled by total assets. You
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could say that average accruals of the previous years are used as proxy for non‐
discretionary accruals (Dechow, Sloan, & Sweeney, 1995)
DAt = TAt – TAa
DAt
Discretionary accruals of year t scaled by lagged total assets
TAt
Total accruals of year t scaled by lagged total assets
TAa
Average total accruals of the 10 years prior to year t scaled by lagged total assets
This means that if non‐discretionary accruals are constant over time and the
discretionary accruals have a mean of zero in the estimation period, then the model
measures nondiscretionary accruals without error. But if non‐discretionary accruals
change from year to year then the non‐discretionary accruals will not be measured
without error. The assumption that non‐discretionary accruals are constant is most
possibly not realistic, because non‐discretionary accruals change in response to changes
the economic circumstances and with firm characteristics (Dechow, Sloan, & Sweeney,
1995).
3.3 The De Angelo model 1986
The model by De Angelo (1986) can be considered as a special version of the Healy
(1985) model. De Angelo (1986) describes, like Healy, the “abnormal” accruals as the total
accruals minus the normal accruals. She uses the accruals of the preceding year as the
“normal” or “expected” accruals. These normal accruals could be seen as proxy for non‐
discretionary accruals and the abnormal accruals as proxy for discretionary accruals.
His formula for discretionary accruals is:
DAt = TAt – TAt‐1
DAt
Discretionary accruals of year t scaled by lagged total assets
TAt
Total accruals of year t scaled by lagged total assets
TAt‐1
Total accruals of the year prior to year t scaled by lagged total assets
When using this model one assumes that accruals are constant over time and have a
mean of zero in the estimation period. Because of these assumptions the model does not
take into account changes in the performance and economic circumstances of the firm
(1995).
3.4 Jones model 1991
The Jones model (1991) is an important improvement on the previous models. The
improvement Jones (1991) makes it that she takes into account the effect of the
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contemporaneous sales revenue and the fixed assets on the non‐discretionary accruals.
The Healy (1985) and De Angelo (1986) models ignore the influence of changes in sales
and the fixed assets on working capital accounts and thereby on accruals. If non‐
discretionary accruals depend for example on the revenues, than a change in accruals
can be caused by changes in non‐discretionary rather than discretionary accruals (1991).
Therefore the model to measure non‐discretionary accruals must correct for the
influence revenues have on the non‐discretionary accruals.
Using the De Angelo (1986) model one assumes that the difference between current and
prior‐year accruals is due to changes in discretionary accruals only. One assumes
thereby that non‐discretionary accruals are constant from period to period. Jones
controls for changes in revenue in her model, with this she eases the assumption that
non‐discretionary accruals are constant.
The Jones (Jones, 1991) model can be divided into three stages. She first calculates the
total accruals. With the total accruals she estimates the coefficients in the formula for
non‐discretionary accruals. With these coefficients the non‐discretionary accruals in the
event year can be calculated and with the non‐discretionary accruals we can find the
discretionary accruals. The discretionary accruals are used as proxy for earnings
management.
The first stage is to calculate the total accruals. As definition for total accruals Jones
(1991) uses the changes in the non‐cash working capital before income taxes payable
less total depreciation expense.
TAi,t = ( CAi,t – CLi,t – Cashi,t + DD1i,t – Depi,t) / Ai,t – 1
TAi,t
Total accruals of firm i at time t scaled by lagged total assets
CAi,t
The change in the current assets of firm i at time t
CLi,t
The change in current liabilities of firm i at time t
Cashi,t
The change in cash holdings of firm i at time t
DD1i, t
The change in long term debt due in one year of firm i at time t
Depi,t
Depreciation and amortization expense of the firm of firm i at time t
Ai,t – 1
Lagged size (in assets) of firm i at time t‐1
It is also possible to calculate total accruals using cash flow data as indicated by Hribar
and Collins (2002). I discuss this later in this chapter. When using this method only the
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first step of the Jones model changes. The calculated total accruals are used in the next
two steps of the Jones (1991) model to find discretionary accruals.
The second stage is to estimate the coefficients in the equation for non‐discretionary
accruals using the total accruals calculated in stage one. Jones (1991) uses a regression
model to estimate the coefficients in the formula for non‐discretionary accruals. The
Jones (1991) model is an event model; it assumes that firms do not manage earnings in
the years before the event. The time‐series of the firms earnings can be separated in an
estimation period where discretionary accruals are zero and the event period (Ronen &
Yaari, 2008).
To estimate these coefficients total accruals are used as dependent variable in the
regression analysis. The coefficients of the formula can be estimated using a time series
model or a cross‐sectional model. I will further explain the difference between these two
and the advantages and disadvantages of both later in this chapter. In both versions the
coefficients are estimated on an estimation sample, this can be the years prior to the
event period (time‐series) or other companies in the industry (cross‐section).
The first part of the second stage is to estimate the coefficients in the formula using total
accruals as dependent variable.
TAi,t =
1 × ( 1/ Ai,t‐1) +
2 × (∆REVi,t) +
3 × (PPEi,t) +ei,t
TAi,t
Total accruals scaled by lagged total assets of company i in year t
Ai,t‐1
Lagged total assets of company i
∆REVi,t
The change in revenue scaled by lagged total assets of company i in year t
PPEi,t
The gross value of property, plant, and equipment in year t for firm i
ei,t
Residual of the model
In this equation the change in revenues and gross property plant and equipment are
included in the model. Jones (1991) ads these variables to control for changes in non‐
discretionary accruals caused by changing conditions in the environment of the
company. The equation is estimated with an OLS‐regression. When using a time‐series
approach coefficients are estimated on basis of a time‐series prior the year in which one
wants to measure earnings management. For this estimation data is needed of the years
preceding the event year. One needs approximately 10 years prior to the event year.
Though normally the equation is estimated on the longest time series of observations
