Report on Earning Management: A Conceptual Analysis in Bangladesh Perspective

Chapter 3: Earning Management: Conceptual IssuesDepending on the tools of influencing earnings for the purpose of earning management behavior and the timing of earnings management there are different definitions of earnings management. According to Healy and Wahlen (1999) 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. Desire to attract external financing at a low cost is an important motivation for earnings management. Managers use judgement to manipulate financial reports to either mislead some stakeholders about the underlying economic performance of the company or to influence contractual outcomes (Healy and Wahlen,1999). Firms manage earnings to reflect positive earnings, to help escalate earnings, and then to beat or meet market expectations (Degeorge, et at., 1999).

3.1 Techniques of Earnings ManagementEarnings management is a very popular term used by management to manage earnings. But it does not mean any illegal activities by management to manage earnings. Managers can achieve earnings from accounting choice or by operating decisions. Managers can manage earnings because they have flexibility in making accounting or operating choices. The most successful and widely used earnings management techniques can be classified into twelve categories are described below.Cookie jar reserve techniquesThe cookie jar techniques deals with estimations of future events. According to GAAP, management has to estimate and record obligations that will be paid in the future as a result of events or transactions in the current fiscal year based on accrual basis. But there is always uncertainty surrounding the estimation process because future is not always certain. There is no correct answer; there may be reasonably possible answers. Management has to select a single amount according to GAAP so there is a chance of taking advantage of earnings management. Under this technique, the corporation will try to overestimate expenses during the current period to manage earnings. If and when actual expenses turn out lower than estimates, the difference can be put into the Cookie Jar to be used later when the company needs a boost in earnings to meet predictions. Some examples of estimation to manage earnings are: sales returns and allowances, estimates of bad debts and write downs, estimating inventory write down, estimating pension expense, terminating pension plans and estimating percentage of completion for long term contracts.Big Bath TechniquesAlthough a rare occurrence, sometimes corporations may restructure debt, write down asset or change and even close down an operating segment. In these instances, expenses are generally unavoidable. If the management record estimated change against earnings for the cost of implementing the change then it will negatively affect the cost of the share price. But the share price may go up rapidly if the change for restructuring and related operational changes is viewed as positively. According to big bath technique, if the manager has to report bad news, a loss from substantial restructuring, it is better to report it all at once and get it out of the way.Big Bet on the future techniqueWhen an acquisition occurs, the corporation acquiring the other is said to have made a big bet on the future. Under GAAP, an acquisition must be reported as a purchase. This leaves two doors open for earnings management. In the first instance, a company can write off continuing R&D cost against current earnings in the acquisition year, protecting future earnings from these charges. This means that when the costs are actually incurred in the future, they will not have to be reported and thus future earnings will have a boost. The second method is to claim the earnings of recently acquired corporation. By acquiring another company, the parent company buys a guaranteed boost in current or future earnings through Big Bet technique.Flushing the investment portfolioTo achieve strategic alliances and invest their excess funds, a company buys the share of another company. Two forms of investment are trading securities and available for sale securities. Actual gains or losses from sales or any change in the market value of trading securities are reported as operating income whereas any change in the market value of available for sale securities during a fiscal period is reported in other comprehensive income components at the bottom of the income statement, not in the operating income. A manager can manage its earnings through various techniques which are:i. Timing sales of securities that have gained value: the company can sell a portfolio security that has an unrealized gain and can report the gain as operating earnings if it is required.ii. Timing sales of securities that have lost value: If the manager wants to show lower earnings then he can sell the security that has an unrealized loss and report the loss in operatingearnings.iii. Change of holding intent, write down impaired securities: Management can manage earnings through change of its holding from available to sale securities to trading securities and vice versa. This would have the effect of moving any unrealized gain or loss on the security to or form the income statement.iv. Write down impaired securities: Securities that have an apparent long term decline in fair market value can be written down to the reduced value regardless of their portfolio classification.Throw out a problem child To increase the earnings of future period, the company can sell the subsidiary which is not performed well i.e. the problem child subsidiary may be thrown out. Earnings can be managed through sell the subsidiary, exchange the stock in an equity method subsidiary and spin off the subsidiary. A gain or less is reported in the current period statement when a subsidiary is sold. The existing shareholders become the owner of the problem child by distributing or exchanging the shares of a subsidiary with the current shareholders. As a result, no gain or loss is normally reported on a spin off. Moreover, it is possible to swap the stock in an equity method subsidiary without having any recordable gain or loss.Introducing new standardNew rules and regulation are introduced in GAAP due to changing demand of business environment. According principles can be modified on a way that will not change the earnings. When a new accounting standard is adopted is takes two to three years to adopt the standard. Voluntary early adoption may provide an opportunity to manage the earnings. A company can take the advantage of manage earning by changing the time an accrual basis rather than cash basis those are recorded as expense on a cash basis. Moreover, timely adoption of a better revenue recognition rule will provide a new window to manage the earnings.Write off of long term operating AssetsThe cost of long term operating assets used or consumed is recorded as an amortization (intangible assets goodwill, patents ,copyrights, and trademark), depreciation (tangible assets- building, machinery, equipment) and depletion expense ( natural resources-timber, coal, oil, natural gas) over the periods expected to be benefited. Management has the discretionary power when selecting the write of method; write of period; estimating salvage value. It is not necessary to record depreciation or amortization expense if the long term operating asset changed to non operating asset.Sale/leasebackA company can enhance the earning of the financial statement by selling a long term asset that has unrealized gain or losses. For instance, the cost of a machine showed in the balance sheet at TK.20 lac, but its market value is now TK.30 lac. If the machine is sold then TK.10 lac gain will enhance the current period earnings. In addition, by recording a gain or loss a company can manage its earnings. According to IAS 17, losses occurring in sale/leaseback transactions are recognized on the sellers book immediately and gain are amortized over the period if it is capital lease or proportion of the payment is operating lease.Operating versus non operating income Earnings are two types: operating and non-operating. Non operating earnings will not affect future earnings where as operating earnings are expected to continue in the near future. Non operating income includes: discontinued operations, extraordinary gains or losses, cumulative effect of change in fallings into those areas. To illustrate, a disposition of a major manufacturing plant could possibility be classified as either a special or unusual charges or as discontinued operations. What classification is more accurate may depend on management judgment regarding for this factor.Early Retirement of DebtManagement can manage the earnings by selecting the fiscal period of early retirement of debt. A gain or loss is occurred when the company makes the early payment of cash which is different from the book value of long term debt such as bonds. This gain or loss is recorded as an extraordinary item at the bottom of the income statement which boosts the earnings of that period.Use of DerivativesDerivatives offer a lot of opportunities for manager to manager earnings. Derivatives can be used to protect against some types of business risk, such as: interest rate change; commodity price change; the weather; oil price changes; changes in foreign currency exchange rates. Derivates should be reported as assets and liabilities in the balance sheet and measured at fair value. Gains and losses from derivate transactions are generally recognized immediately in regular income. For example, suppose a company had a large issue of bonds outstanding at a fixed interest rate. The company could enter into an interest rate increases; the company would then record an increase in interest expense for the bonds and a decrease if the rate has decrease. Since, when the company enters into the swap is up to the company, the timing option provides an opportunity to manage the earnings.Shrink the shipCompanies do not have to report any gain or loss for repurchase of their own shares on the income statement because no income is recognized on the transaction. Income is only earned through equity transactions outside the firm, not with those involving the firms owners. A stock buy does not affect earnings but it is used to affect earnings per share.So, these are the common & popular earnings management techniques. Management uses these techniques as & when required to manage earnings. Management uses cookie jar reserve technique to shown boom earnings in the future period. Big bath technique are used in the belief that if a manager have to report bad news i.e., a loss from substantial restructuring, it is better to report it all at once and get it out of the way. Sometimes a subsidiary may underperform & the earnings of this type of security are managed by throw out a problem child method. Companies that changes GAAP have to take care that stock market does not view the change as lowering the quality of earnings. Under the amortization, depreciation and depletion method, management manages earnings by selecting the write off method and period & estimating salvage value.

3.2 Motives Behind Earning ManagementThe reasons for earnings management are diverse and range from the intention to satisfy analysts expectations to incentives to realize bonuses or to maintain a competitive position within the financial market. Legal earnings management means financial reports are adjusted in line with financial reporting standards. Earnings management becomes fraudulent financial reporting when it falls outside the bounds of acceptable accounting practice. Therefore, companies will only engage in earnings management when the benefits of this behavior are higher than the risks and costs involved. Stable dividend and stable business act as motivational tools to the manager to manage earnings ( Suda and Shuto, 2006). Matsumoto (2002) argues that firms with high growth prospects have greater incentives to manipulate earnings to avoid unfavorable market reaction to negative earnings news. Matsumoto also stated that the earnings of loss firms are less value relevant and thus mangers are less likely to adjust earnings to meet targets.Prior researches identified different categories of incentives; stock market incentives; signaling / concealing private information; political costs; personal interest; internal motives; management compensation contract motivations, lending contracts motivations and regulatory motivations.Stock market incentives:The interaction between accounting numbers and stock markets reaction can indeed push management towards earnings management. Investors often rely on the views and forecasts of stock market analysts to put together a portfolio of potentially successful firms. Meeting or beating the analysts forecasts seems to be of enough importance for companies to engage in earnings management. Meeting the analysts expectations is important because firms that meet or beat expectations enjoy higher returns, even when it is likely that this is achieved through earnings management or expectations management. Missing an earnings benchmark has negative implications for stock returns as well as CEO compensation. To be able to meet or beat the forecasts, managers turn to earnings management. If pre-managed earning are below the forecast, managers use income-increasing earnings management. If pre-managed earnings are higher than the forecast, manager can choose between income-decreasing earnings management (saving it for a rainy day) or not managing the earnings (hoping for an increase in stock return).Companies that show an increase in earnings as well as in revenues are less susceptible to earnings management. To align shareholders goals with managers objectives and give less room to agency conflicts, CEOs and senior management are often compensated by equity incentives. This kind of opportunistic behavior might even increase when there is a direct link to these two incentives and the financial benefit of the firms management. Recent research also considered earnings management in specific stock market situations, such as an initial public offering and seasoned equity offerings.Signaling or concealing private informationEarnings management is, by definition a process of altering financial information in order to achieve certain goals. Failure firms engage in earnings management and alter their annual accounts to conceal their financial struggle without immediately measuring the consequences on stock price or CEO compensation. The growth signal combined with another signal such as a stock split might be an effective way of communicating private information.Political costs:Firms can also manage reported earnings by changing financial statements in order to influence shareholders opinions and decisions. Governmental regulations and tax laws, when companies make use of financial reports, are obvious candidates to be analyzed as possible sources of earnings management motives. It can be valuable to companies to seem more/less profitable to escape from governmental interference. When accounting numbers are the basis for tax calculation, there might be large tax avoidance incentives for earnings management. In summary, political costs seem to be a strong incentive for firms to manage their earnings. This is even proven in economics where there exist no efficient stock markets and CEOs are appointed by the government.Personal incentivesThere might be other than financial motives for the CEO to manage earnings. A new CEO can be tending to downwards earning management in the year of change and upwards earnings management in the following years. Retiring CEOs use upwards earnings management to leave in style and keep a seat on the board.Internal motivesFinally there are motives for earnings management that are not linked to external stakeholders (such as shareholders, government or unions) but are intra-company. Within a company, it might also be useful to alter financial reports or to structure transactions in such a way that budget ratcheting is avoided or performance standards are met. Managers will choose to use income-decreasing unexpected accruals when the earnings innovations are transitory. Companies using externally determined standards (i.e relatively unaffected by participants such as peer group standards, fixed standards or cost of capital) are less likely to smooth earnings than those companies that use internal standards ( budget goals, prior year, subjective standards).

Management compensation contract motivationsThe management compensation theory, also known as the bonus plan hypothesis contends that managers are motivated to use earnings management to improve their compensation, as management bonuses are often tried to the firms earnings. It is thus expected that earnings management is used to increase income. Managers are more likely to choose to report accruals that defer income when the cap on bonus awards were reached, as they had no more to gain form extra earnings and would be better off increasing income for the following year at that point. These ties in with the big bath hypothesis , which suggests that if managers are unable to manipulate earnings to reach a particular target, they will have the incentive to use earnings management to decrease current earnings in favor of future earnings and therefore, future bonuses. Doehow & Sloan (1995) found that managers decrease research and development expenditure in the final year of their terms in order to increase earnings and thus their payout upon leaving the company.Lending contracts motivationsAnother major hypothesis is the debt covenant hypothesis. This theory is based on the fact that creditors often impose restriction on the payment of dividends, share buybacks and issuing of additional debts in terms of reported accounting figures and ratios, in order to ensure the repayment of firms borrowings. Hence, the hypothesis is that firms who have a lot of debt have an incentive to manage earnings so that they do not breach their debt covenants. Banks used loan loss provisions to manage earnings (Sumit, 2006).Studies have produced mixed results in this area. Healy, DeAngelo, and Skipper investigated whether firms close to breaching their lending covenants changed accounting methods, such as the accounting of depreciation accounting estimates, or made other transactions in order to avoid breaching their covenants. They concluded, however, that there was little evidence of earnings management by these firms; rather, they were more likely to reduce dividend payments or restructure their operations and contractual obligations. On the other hand, DeFond & Jiambalvo (1974) found that firms who violated their debt covenants used accruals to increase income the year before the violation.

Regulatory MotivationSome industries, in particular the banking, insurance and utility industries are monitored for compliance with regulations linked to accounting figures and ratios. Banks and insurance firms especially are often subject to requirements that they have enough capital or assets to meet their liabilities. Such regulations may give managers incentives to use earnings management.Research has shown that banks which are close to minimum capital requirements use earnings management techniques such as overstating loan loss provisions, understanding loan write offs and recognizing abnormal realized gains on their investment porfolios, presumably so as not to breach the regulatory requirements.

3.3 How to control Earnings ManagementOne way to control earnings management (by accounting techniques) is setting more rigorous Accounting standards. However, this may have the unwanted effect that managers turn to real earnings management, which consists of abnormal, suboptimal, business practices in order to change reported earnings. Given the weak legal system and the lack of accounting and capital market infrastructure in transitional economies, emerging economies are particularly like to face severe problems in monitoring managers accounting decisions. The introduction of international accounting standard and practices in the market has been shown to increase market liquidity; reduced transaction cost, and improved pricing efficiency. It is still an open question as to whether the adoption of international accounting standards improves the quality of accounting information, thereby reducing the level of earnings management. Firms adopting IAS are less likely to smooth earnings, less likely to manage earnings upwards to avoid reporting a loss, and more likely to recognize loss timely than non-adopting firms.As the worlds economies have become increasingly interlinked, many countries are trying to harmonize their accounting standards, and even to adopt a common set of reporting standards. Under the lead of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) more than 100 countries have either implemented International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) or plan to do so. The US Securities and Exchange commission (SEC) announced that it would promote international compatibility by allowing foreign companies to access US capital markets while reporting under IFRS (SEC, 2007). IN the European Union, companies were obliged to prepare their consolidated accounts in conformity with IFRS if, at their balance sheet date for financial years starting on or after 1 January 2005, their securities were admitted to trading on a regulated market of any EU Member State (European Union, 2002). A similar rule applies in Australia.In addition, corporate governance practices signal the potential for earnings management. Permissive structures indicate that manipulation is more likely. The board of directors sets overall policy & provided oversight for operating activities. Historically, boards were composed mainly of owners, managers & other insiders. It is now clear that a majority of independent board member is essential for effective oversight.Moreover, if accounting standards as well as governmental scrutiny do not completely eliminate earnings management then auditors should be confronted with attempts to alter financial reports. Increased audit quality could or should lead to increased quality of reported earnings. Audit committee members must be aware of the ways in which managements accounting-related choices provide opportunities to manage earningsthrough timing of transactions and making estimates.Roman (2009) suggested that Audit committee members can use the summary of critical accounting policies as follows:1) Understand the transactions that require management to make the judgment or estimate. (for example, a company that mentions its accounting for inventory as significant is telling us it has more goods for sale during a period than it in fact sells.)2) Understand the choices available to management in USGAAP or now under IFRS to account for the transactions in item 1. (In the U.S the company can use FIFO and LIFO or weighted average cost flow assumptions or specific identification. The company reporting under IFRS cannot use LIFO.)3) Understand what management chose and why (A company choosing LIFO likely does it to defer income tax payments in times of rising prices and increasing inventories.)4) Most important, understand the potential a given choice provides for earnings management. (If the auditor doesnt know how a company using LIFO can manage earnings by delaying year-end purchases, he wont know to ask whether there have been unusual year-end accelerated or deferred purchases.)When auditors understand how a companys transactions intertwine with its accounting principles, they will be able to determine whether a company engages in earnings management or not.

3.4 Relationship Between Earnings Management and Earnings Quality

Earning quality is an abstract perception since quality cannot be directly examined. For example researchers could not come to conclude about what exactly high quality of earnings mean. Depending on the perspective from which the quality is judged, earnings quality is simply to how well future earnings could be forecasted using current earnings. Under an informational perspective (the informational perspective means the important feature of accounting numbers is their information content. Information content is the information contained in the components of earnings (Schipper, 1989), quality of earnings is one of many signals that may be used to make decisions and judgments such as the valuation of securities (Schipper, 1989). From the valuation perspective, earnings are of good quality if it is a good indicator of future earnings (Penman and Zhang, 2002). AS per this perspective, the higher the earnings quality, the better the future earnings forecast. Similarly, current earnings are of low quality when future earnings forecast have low correlation with current earnings (Mackee, 2005). While there are other interpretations of earnings quality, high quality earnings are conservative, while low quality earnings are upwardly managed earnings (Kin Lo, 2008).Penman pointed out the following five factors affect earnings quality (Mackee, 2005):i. GAAP qualityii. Audit qualityiii. GAAP application qualityiv. Business transaction qualityv. Disclosures qualityQuality of earnings depends on selection of the best available accounting methods, detection of misstatements by the auditor, consistency and appropriateness of the accounting methods used by the company, reflection of real economic value in the financial results and full and fairness of disclosures. Most of the research on the quality of earnings focuses on the effects of changes in accounting estimates. Independent auditors and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) can enforce accounting standards by creating framework that will provide a relatively low-cost and credible means for corporate managers to report financial results to external capital providers and other stakeholders. Therefore, financial reporting helps the best-performing firms in the economy to distinguish themselves from poor performers and also helps to allocate resources efficiently in the capital market. It also assists stakeholders to make decisions. Current earnings, which reflect management reporting judgment, have been widely found to be value-relevant and are typically better predictors of future cash flow performance than are current cash flows (Healy and Wahlen, 1999). Earnings management has a lot in common with earnings quality such as highly managed earnings have low quality. However, the lack of earnings management is not sufficient to guarantee high quality earnings (or high quality accounting numbers more generally), because other factors contribute to the quality of earnings. For example, accountants delicately following a poor set of standards will generate low quality financial reports. However, researchers have found that there is much closer connection between earnings management and earnings quality. There exists strong relationship between earning quality and earning management when earnings quality directly signals earnings management. Semi-strong relationship exists when the earnings quality metric partly indicates earnings management. The weakest type of the relationship is observed when earnings quality metrics infers earnings management (Ghoncharov, 2005). Although earnings quality and earnings management are sometimes used interchangeably, there are only a few measures of earnings quality which are strongly related to earnings management. As described above that earnings management occurs by using the accounting choices, real cash flow decisions and the fraud accounting to deprive some stakeholders and to influence the contractual outcomes, it may be concluded that the quality concepts such as earnings smoothing, loss avoidance, accrual quality (magnitude of accruals, discretionary accruals) constitute earnings management. Accrual quality (accrual estimation errors) has semi-strong relationship with earnings management and all other measures cannot be used as proxies for earnings management (Ghoncharov, 2005).

3.5 Earnings Management, Firm Value and IPO PerformanceFirms especially those who are issuing Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) have some motivations to manipulate earnings. These firms manage Pre-IPO earnings upward i.e. primary issue firms have positive discretionary accruals. IPO firms are better able to resort to earnings management because there exists information asymmetry between investors and IPO issuers prior to their public offerings (Xiong, et al., 2010). The motive for earnings management by IPO issuing firms is to inflate the IPO price with a view to benefiting insiders (sponsored directors/shareholders) at the expense of IPO subscribers.Primary issue firms and secondary firms have differing levels of earnings management. In Cottons (2008) view, while firms issuing only primary shares manage earnings upwards, those issuing a combination of primary and secondary shares do not manage earnings upwards, and firms issuing only secondary shares manage earnings downwards (2008). The shares issued by the company are known as primary shares, while the shares sold by the insiders are called secondary shares (Cotten, 2008). Secondary issues firms do not manage earnings upwards with a view to reducing the likelihood of lawsuits.IPOs usually experience fairly large returns (under pricing) on the first day of trading. Of the possible reasons for under pricing, asymmetry of information between the IPO issuing firms and outside investors is a significant reason. Information asymmetry provides the managers with the scope and incentives to embrace opportunistic behavior, including earnings management. If IPO issuers manipulate accounting variables substantially to show a rosy picture of IPO issuing firms, the accounting statements and variables will be less likely to represent their true profitability , and the valuation will naturally be less accurate. In such a situation, underwriters may (and often does) adjust for the effect of earnings management to appropriately pricing the issues (Nagata &Hachiya, 2007). Prior research has found that there is a negative association between pre- IPO earnings management and subsequent stock returns over a 3-year period (Xiong, et al., 2010).Hunt, Moyer and Shevlin (1997) find that for a given earnings level, smoother earnings are associated with a higher market value of equity. This view holds after controlling for the underlying volatility of operating cash flows, indicating that earnings volatility is incrementally informative to cash flow volatility. Burgstahler and Dicheve (1997) report that firms with a consistent pattern of earnings increase command higher price-to earnings multiples, after controlling for earnings levels.Tying management incentives to the stock price may have had the perverse effect of encouraging managers to exploit their discretion in reporting earnings, with an eye to manipulating the stock prices of their companies. Bergstresser and Phillippon (2006) find evidence that more incentivized CEOsthose whose overall compensation is more linked to company share priceslead companies with higher levels of earnings management.3.6 Earnings Management and firm sizeBurgstahler and Dichev (1997), estimate that 8-12% of the firms with small pre-managed earnings decrease control earnings to achieve earnings increases whereas 30-44% of the firms with small pre-managed losses manage earnings (by exercising discretion) to create positive earnings. They observe that these practices are more widespread among medium and large-sized firms. With regard to the relationship between firm size and earnings management, it has been found large firms are more likely to manage earnings than the small firms. These firms have better bargaining power to influence auditors. Moreover, it has been found that large firms usually do not report earnings correctly (Kim, et al., 2003). There are, however, differing arguments that argued that large-sized firms may be less likely to manage earnings relative to smaller counterparts because they are followed by more financial analysts (Kim, 2003). Moreover, the reputation cost of managing earnings is very significant to big firms and this might restrict them to do so.3.7 Earning Management ModelDiscretionary accruals models How can earnings management be measured? It is not possible to observe earnings management directly. Therefore, researchers have investigated 2 venues for earnings management, the choice of accounting methods and the management of accruals. Previous research on accruals focused mainly for the fiscal year of IPO. The accruals methods that are employed by various researchers are summarized.The Healy Model Healy (1985) tests for earnings management by comparing mean total accruals (scaled by lagged total assets) across the earnings management partitioning variables. Healy's study differs from most other earnings management studies in that he predicts that systematic earnings management occurs in every period. His partitioning variable divides the sample into three groups with earnings predicted to be managed upwards in one of the groups and downward in the other 2 groups. Inferences are then made through pair wise comparisons of the mean total accruals in the group where earnings is predicted to be managed upwards to the mean total accruals for each of the groups where earnings is predicted to be managed downwards. This approach is equivalent to treating the set of observations for which earnings are predicted to be managed upwards as the estimation period and the set of observations for which earnings are predicted to be managed downwards as the event period. The mean total accruals from the estimation period then represent the measure of nondiscretionary accruals. The Jones Model Jones (1991) proposes a model that relaxes the assumption that non-discretionary accruals are constant. This model attempts to control for the effect of changes in a firm's economic circumstances on nondiscretionary accruals. The results were tremendous. It indicates that the model is successful at explaining around 1 quarter of the variation in total accruals. Revenues are assumed to be non-discretionary in this model. If earnings are managed through discretionary revenues then the Jones Model is able to remove part of the managed earnings from the discretionary accrual proxy. For example, considering a situation where management uses its discretion to accrue revenues at year-end when the cash has not yet been received and it is highly questionable whether the revenues have been earned. The result of this managerial discretion will be an increase in revenues and total accruals (through an increase in receivables). The Jones Model uses total accruals with respect to revenues and will therefore extract this discretionary component of accruals, causing the estimate of earnings management to be biased toward zero. Jones recognizes this limitation of her model.The industry modelThe final model considered is the industry model used by Dechow and Sloan (1991). Similar to the Jones Model, the industry model relaxes the assumption that non-discretionary accruals are constant over time. However, instead of attempting to directly model the determinants of non-discretionary accruals, the industry model assumes that variations in the determinants of non-discretionary accruals are common across firms in the same industry.

Chapter 4: Earning Management in Bangladesh Perspective4.1 Impact of Earnings ManagementEarnings management may impact investors by providing them with incorrect information. Investors use financial information to decide whether to buy, sell, or hold specific securities. Capital markets use financial information to set security prices. When the earnings information is incorrect, it is most likely markets will value securities correctly. To the extent that earnings management masks real performance and reduces the ability of shareholders to make informed decisions, earnings management can be viewed as an agency cost (Xie, et al., 2003).4.2 Earnings Management in Bangladesh- Some ObservationsIn Bangladesh there is low compliance with disclosure regulations (Akteruddin, 2005). Integrity of audit firms is also questionable. Auditors are not required to state whether or not disclosure rules are properly complied with. In such a scenario, it is plausible to assume that management of firms may manage earnings upward to induce mispricing of shares and benefit from it. Higher earnings produce higher stock prices and higher stock prices produce greater proceeds from the IPO issues with less dilution of earnings and control. However, to our knowledge, only a few empirical studies are seen on the extent earnings management in Bangladesh. Razzaque et.al. studied evidences of earnings management in textile sector listed companies and found evidence of discretionary accrual management. The evidence indicates that in all other sectors, earnings management must be significantly prevalent. Besides their study, we have few examples of accounting treatment by few financial firms/banks which we consider management of earnings. These are:(i) It appears from audited financial statements of a private Bank for the year ended December 31, 2006 that no provision for staff gratuity has been made in the books of the bank. Gratuity benefits are accounted for in the books of the bank at the time of such payment, i.e. on cash basis. This accounting treatment may be called an example of earnings management because the Bank did not ascertain the actual liability for employees gratuity benefit and did not kept provisions for the same when it was due. The cost of employee benefits should have been recognized in the period in which the benefit is earned by the employee, rather than when it is paid or payable (BAS 19). So bank should ascertain the amount of Gratuity Benefits as per BAS 19 each year and full provision should be provided for the accrued liability. This earnings management falls under out of GAAP method meaning it is a violation of GAAP.

(ii) It appears from the audited financial statements of a financial institution for the year ended on December 31, 2006 that the institution has provided for Tk.36,274,775.00 for the liabilities for its employees gratuity scheme instead of Tk.239,092,524 as is required under Bangladesh Accounting Standards (BAS)19 : Employee Benefits. In this case, the institution has made short provision of Tk.356,817,749 (Tk.393092524- 36274775) for the liabilities of its employees gratuity. It appears that the institution overstated its profit to the tune of Tk. 356,817,749 by providing short provision for its employees gratuity and consequently understated its liabilities to that extent which affected the true and fair view of the state of affairs as on December 31, 2006. It has also affected the earnings for the period ended on December 31, 2006.

Chapter 5: Recommendation & Conclusion5.1 RecommendationI). Earnings management is less likely to occur in companies whose boards include both non-executive independent directors and directors with corporate experience. The composition of audit committee with corporate finance, accounting and or investment banking backgrounds help reduce the incentives for managers to earnings management due to their fear of being caught. The SEC of Bangladesh should make earnings management a top priority in its monitoring agenda. It can direct accounting professionals to provide adequate and relevant information in their certified financial statements to meet existing disclosure requirements to check earnings management. SEC can form an earnings management task force to control earnings management to safeguard investors interests. II). The SEC must set the level of discretion that managers should be allowed to exercise in financial reporting. This is because earnings management have significant impact on stock markets and investors.III). In Bangladesh, IPOs are priced on the basis of projected Earnings per share or EPS (under book building method). Therefore, they manipulate EPS beforehand. So pricing should not be based on projected earnings; instead it should be based on historical EPS (3/5 years). In India, pricing is not based on projected EPS.IV). At present, (margin) brokers and merchant bankers provide to the investors on the basis of price earnings ratio of marginable securities. This gives the companies to get incentives to manage and show higher earnings in order to avail more margin for investors which may ultimately result in manipulation of the market price. Therefore, margin should not be linked with the P/E ratio of marginable securities.

5.2 ConclusionOn balance, one of the most important reasons of earnings management is to present the financial performance of the company in the best possible manner. There might me some reasons for earnings management such as market expectations especially before IPO, contractual motives, regulatory motives and so on. If we relate human psychology to this matter of earnings management, we will find that, as human being we always like to see things in positive manner than in negative ones. Though the truth is always true, sometimes people cannot accept that due to their inner self. If management shows the true but realistic earnings, which might not be at par with the expectation of stockholders, it might bring negative outcomes for all; hence, management tries to protect all those uncertainty by showing some rosy picture of the business through earnings management.

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