When Executives Pledge Integrity: The Effect of the Accountant’s Oath on Firms’ Financial Reporting
利用荷兰2016年要求会计学位持有者宣誓诚信的规定，研究发现CEO和CFO宣誓后，企业减少了向上的可操控应计利润和酌量性支出，表明诚信誓言提升了财务报告质量，且效果主要由CFO驱动。
ABSTRACT We study the effect of executives’ pledges of integrity on firms’ financial reporting outcomes by exploiting a 2016 regulation that requires holders of Dutch professional accounting degrees to pledge an integrity oath. We identify chief executive officers (CEOs) and chief financial officers (CFOs) required to take the integrity oath and find that firms reduce income-increasing discretionary accruals after executives took the oath. These firms also reduce discretionary expenditures, indicating that oath-taking executives reduce overall earnings management and do not merely substitute accruals-based with real-activities earnings management. These effects are concentrated in firms where the CFO took the oath. Overall, our results indicate that integrity oaths for executives improve firms’ financial reporting quality. Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text. JEL Classifications: M40; M41.