Country-Level Risk and the trade-off between real earnings management and accrual earnings management: evidence from pakistan

Abstract

Abstract The aim of this study is to understand whether real earnings management (REM) and accruals earnings management (AM) can be used as substitute of one another in the context of Pakistan. Additionally, we also examine the effect of country-level political risk on earnings management. To achieve our desire objectives, we used a panel sample of 197 Pakistani firms for a period of 13 years (2007-2019). To measure REM, we follow Roychowdhury (2006) and to measure AM, we follow Jones (1991) and modified Jones (1995) model. For data analysis, we used simultaneous equation modelling and ordinary least square (OLS) regression with time and firm fixed effects. The results indicate that when the cost associated with REM(AM) increases, the firm’s inclination towards AM(REM) decreases which suggests that managers use both REM and AM approaches as substitutes of one another. Further, the results show that country-level political risks positively affect real REM while it has insignificant effect on AM. Moreover, the adoption of IFRS as accounting standards does not have any effect on the earnings management in Pakistan. This study can be extended to firm-level risk factors to examine their role in earnings management. Moreover, how manager use to adopt REM and AM in the highly regulated industries i.e., financial and services industries, also provides a promising opportunity for future research.

Keywords

• earnings management (em); real earnings management (rem); accrual management (am); country-level political risk ifrs;