Discretionary Accruals and Earnings Management: An Analysis of Pseudo Earnings Targets
检验酌定应计项目与达到盈余基准的正相关是否也存在于其他分布点（伪目标），发现盈利基准的效果在分布中普遍存在，但分析师预期基准不显著，且现金流也有类似模式，无法排除其他解释。
We investigate whether the positive associations between discretionary accrual proxies and beating earnings benchmarks hold for comparisons of groups segregated at other points in the distributions of earnings, earnings changes, and analystsbased unexpected earnings. We refer to these points as “pseudo” targets. Results suggest that the positive association between discretionary accruals and beating the profit benchmark extends to pseudo targets throughout the earnings distribution. We find similar results for the earnings change distribution. In contrast, we find few positive associations between discretionary accruals and beating pseudo targets derived from analysts-based unexpected earnings. We develop an additional analysis that accounts for the systematic association between discretionary accruals and earnings and earnings changes. Results suggest that the positive association between discretionary accruals and earnings intensifies around the actual profit benchmark (i.e., where earnings management incentives may be more pronounced). We find similar effects around the actual earnings increase benchmark. However, analogous patterns exist for cash flows around the profit and earnings increase benchmarks. In sum, we are unable to eliminate other plausible explanations for the associations between discretionary accruals and beating the profit and earnings increase benchmarks.