Corporate Governance, Accounting Conservatism, and Manipulation
构建模型分析董事会治理如何影响企业财务报告选择及经理人操纵会计报告的动机，发现更强的报告监督会提高会计稳健性、操纵行为和投资效率。
We develop a model to analyze how board governance affects firms’ financial reporting choices and managers’ incentives to manipulate accounting reports. In our setting, ceteris paribus, conservative accounting is desirable because it allows the board of directors to better oversee the firm’s investment decisions. This feature of conservatism, however, causes the manager to manipulate the accounting system to mislead the board and distort its decisions. Effective reporting oversight curtails managers’ ability to manipulate, which increases the benefits of conservative accounting and simultaneously reduces its costs. Our model predicts that stronger reporting oversight leads to greater accounting conservatism, manipulation, and investment efficiency. This paper was accepted by Mary Barth, accounting.