Audit Quality and the Trade-Off between Accretive Stock Repurchases and Accrual-Based Earnings Management
研究了审计质量如何影响企业在应计盈余管理和真实盈余管理（增值性股票回购）之间的权衡，发现高审计质量促使企业更多使用股票回购而非应计操纵来达到分析师预测。
ABSTRACT We examine whether audit quality affects the trade-off between accrual-based and real earnings management. We hypothesize that firms motivated to manage earnings per share (EPS) to meet or beat consensus analysts' forecasts are more likely to engage in accretive stock repurchases (a form of real earnings management) when their ability to manage earnings through accruals is constrained by high audit quality. We find that firms with high audit quality are more likely to use accretive stock repurchases and less likely to use accrual-based earnings management to meet or beat consensus analysts' forecasts. Our results are robust to various controls for endogeneity concerns.