{"title":"Macroeconomic uncertainty and earnings management: evidence from commodity firms","authors":"","doi":"10.1007/s11156-024-01246-8","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<h3>Abstract</h3> <p>This study examines the relationship between macroeconomic uncertainty and earnings management, using quarterly data of US commodity firms from the period 1990–2019. The findings show that oil and iron firms use both accruals and real activities to decrease earnings in quarters with high basis risk. Earnings management is economically significant. Further investigation provides fine-grained evidence that specific types of uncertainty (economic policy, climate policy, geopolitical) have varying effects on earnings management. The study also provides evidence that earnings management is aimed at giving investors useful information about the firms’ performance during uncertain times. The study contributes to previous research on uncertainty and earnings management. It also informs market participants about the financial reporting quality of commodity firms, and has practical implications for financial reporting regulation in extracting industries.</p>","PeriodicalId":47688,"journal":{"name":"Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting","volume":"38 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.9000,"publicationDate":"2024-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11156-024-01246-8","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"BUSINESS, FINANCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This study examines the relationship between macroeconomic uncertainty and earnings management, using quarterly data of US commodity firms from the period 1990–2019. The findings show that oil and iron firms use both accruals and real activities to decrease earnings in quarters with high basis risk. Earnings management is economically significant. Further investigation provides fine-grained evidence that specific types of uncertainty (economic policy, climate policy, geopolitical) have varying effects on earnings management. The study also provides evidence that earnings management is aimed at giving investors useful information about the firms’ performance during uncertain times. The study contributes to previous research on uncertainty and earnings management. It also informs market participants about the financial reporting quality of commodity firms, and has practical implications for financial reporting regulation in extracting industries.
期刊介绍:
Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting deals with research involving the interaction of finance with accounting, economics, and quantitative methods, focused on finance and accounting. The papers published present useful theoretical and methodological results with the support of interesting empirical applications. Purely theoretical and methodological research with the potential for important applications is also published. Besides the traditional high-quality theoretical and empirical research in finance, the journal also publishes papers dealing with interdisciplinary topics.