Cross‐Firm Real Earnings Management
研究发现，经理人不仅会操纵自家财报，还会通过影响产品市场竞争中的真实交易来干扰竞争对手的盈余报告，从而改变股东对公司价值的看法。
ABSTRACT Our analysis is rooted in the notion that stockholders can learn about the fundamental value of any firm from observing the earnings reports of its rivals. We argue that such intraindustry information transfers, which have been broadly documented in the empirical literature, may motivate managers to alter stockholders’ beliefs about the value of their firm not only by manipulating their own earnings report but also by influencing the earnings reports of rival firms. Managers obviously do not have access to the accounting system of peer firms, but they can nevertheless influence the earnings reports of rival firms by distorting real transactions that relate to the product market competition. We demonstrate such managerial behavior, which we refer to as cross‐firm real earnings management, and explore its potential consequences and interrelation with the practice of accounting‐based earnings management within an industry setting with imperfect (nonproprietary) accounting information.