Earnings Management, Corporate Investments, and Stock Returns
41 Pages Posted: 18 Mar 2005
Date Written: March 12, 2005
Abstract
In this paper, we investigate the relation between accounting accruals and abnormal corporate investments and if the accrual-based anomaly documented by Sloan (1996) is distinct from the investment-based anomaly documented by Titman, Wei, and Xie (2004). Our results indicate that abnormal capital investments are positively associated with accounting accruals and that the mispricing of abnormal capital investments is distinct from the mispricing of discretionary current accruals. In addition, investors can earn substantially higher size-adjusted returns by exploiting both strategies at the same time than by exploiting each individual strategy alone. Finally, our result suggests that the stock market appears to overvalue both discretionary current accruals and abnormal capital expenditures.
Keywords: Discretionary accruals, earnings management, abnormal capital investment, market efficiency
JEL Classification: G14, G31, M41, M42
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?
Recommended Papers
-
Optimal Investment, Growth Options, and Security Returns
By Jonathan Berk, Richard C. Green, ...
-
By Lu Zhang
-
A Cross-Sectional Test of a Production-Based Asset Pricing Model
-
Equilibrium Cross-Section of Returns
By Joao F. Gomes, Leonid Kogan, ...
-
Equilibrium Cross-Section of Returns
By Joao F. Gomes, Leonid Kogan, ...
-
Capital Investments and Stock Returns
By K.c. John Wei, Feixue Xie, ...
-
Capital Investments and Stock Returns
By K.c. John Wei, Feixue Xie, ...
-
Capital Investments and Stock Returns in Japan
By Sheridan Titman, K. C. John Wei, ...
-
Corporate Investment and Asset Price Dynamics: Implications for the Cross-Section of Returns
By Murray Carlson, Adlai J. Fisher, ...
-
By Eugene F. Fama and Kenneth R. French