Accounting Informs Investors and Earnings Management is Rife: Two Questionable Beliefs

12 Pages Posted: 3 Feb 2013 Last revised: 15 May 2013

See all articles by Ray Ball

Ray Ball

University of Chicago - Booth School of Business

Date Written: May 15, 2013

Abstract

This short essay is based on a presentation at the panel discussion on “The Most Incorrect Beliefs in Accounting” at the American Accounting Association Meetings in 2012. It addresses the inordinate amount of attention given in the literature to accounting’s role in providing new information for equity investors, and to allegedly rampant “earnings management.”

Keywords: earnings management, value relevance, earnings informativeness

JEL Classification: M41

Suggested Citation

Ball, Ray, Accounting Informs Investors and Earnings Management is Rife: Two Questionable Beliefs (May 15, 2013). Accounting Horizons, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2211288 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2211288

Ray Ball (Contact Author)

University of Chicago - Booth School of Business ( email )

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
3,512
Abstract Views
25,588
Rank
6,057
PlumX Metrics