Detecting Earnings Management through Empirical Earnings Distributions

This paper, examines the difference between empirical and expected frequency distribution of a sample consisting 3394 observations of earnings, and investigates whether earnings are managed to avoid earning decreases and losses. Also, it examines the pooled cross-sectional empirical distributions of scaled earnings of the companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange and finds a significant discontinuities in the form of unusually low frequencies in the interval immediately left of zero earnings and unusually high frequencies in the interval immediately right of zero earnings. It shows that managers manipulate earnings upwards to shift it to the right of zero earnings threshold to avoid losses. The study also reveals that managers of firms with a small pre-managed loss manipulate two components of earnings, operating cash flow and working capital to manage their income. There was no evidence of manipulating earnings to avoid earnings decreases.