盈利质量和盈余管理(英文).doc19

Earnings Management and Earnings Quality
1. What is Earnings Management? (Bryan Hall’s Webpage)
Earnings management is defined by accounting literature as  “distorting the application of generally accepted accounting principles.”   Arthur Levitt, the old SEC Chairman, defined earnings management as “practices by which earnings reports reflect the desires of management rather than the underlying financial performance of the company.”
Earnings management is often defined as the planned timing of revenues, expenses, gains and losses to smooth out bumps in earnings. In most cases, earnings management is used to increase income in the current year at the expense of income in future years. For example, companies prematurely recognize sales before they are complete in order to boost earnings. Earnings management can also be used to decrease current earnings in order to increase income in the future. The classic case is the use of "cookie jar" reserves, which are established, by using unrealistic assumptions to estimate liabilities for such items as sales returns, loan losses, and warranty returns.
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