Financial statement fraud generates many negative effects, including reducing people's willingness to participate in the stock market. If it also stigmatizes accounting, it may similarly adversely affect the quantity and quality of workers willing to become accountants, thereby potentially creating negative effects for years to come. We examine the impact of fraud on the labor force entering the accounting profession, which is a key input into the production of accounting information (i.e., the output). Using data describing millions of college students across the United States, we find incoming students are actually more likely to major in accounting when local frauds occur during their formative years. These students are also more likely to have attributes desired by the accounting profession (e.g., high academic aptitude) and are more likely to subsequently serve in public accounting and become Certified Public Accountants. In the context of other fields (i.e., all college majors), we find that fraud similarly spurs interest in other business disciplines, but not in majors outside of business schools. Those attracted to other business disciplines, however, generally possess different traits. Specifically, students entering accounting are distinctively more likely to exhibit values espoused by the accounting profession, including a predisposition to public service and less commercial orientation. Thus, nonpecuniary motives appear to uniquely drive accounting student enrollment following fraud. Collectively, our findings suggest that, while fraud is unmistakably bad, it appears to have the positive unintended consequence of attracting labor into business disciplines and, in accounting, increasing the prevalence of desirable traits among entrants.

中文翻译：

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财务报表舞弊对会计劳动力流入的外部性

财务报表造假会产生许多负面影响，包括降低人们参与股市的意愿。如果它也污蔑会计，那么它可能同样会对愿意成为会计师的工人的数量和质量产生不利影响，从而可能在未来几年产生负面影响。我们研究了欺诈对进入会计行业的劳动力的影响，这是会计信息生产（即输出）的关键输入。通过使用描述美国数百万大学生的数据，我们发现，当新生在他们的成长时期发生当地欺诈行为时，他们实际上更有可能选择会计专业。这些学生也更有可能拥有会计职业所需的特质（例如，高学术能力），并且更有可能随后在公共会计领域任职并成为注册会计师。在其他领域（即所有大学专业）的背景下，我们发现欺诈同样会激发人们对其他商业学科的兴趣，但不会激发对商学院以外专业的兴趣。然而，那些被其他商业学科所吸引的人通常具有不同的特征。具体来说，进入会计行业的学生明显更有可能表现出会计职业所拥护的价值观，包括倾向于公共服务和较少的商业导向。因此，非金钱动机似乎是欺诈后会计学生入学的唯一推动因素。总的来说，我们的研究结果表明，虽然欺诈无疑是坏事，但它似乎会产生积极的意想不到的后果，吸引劳动力进入商业学科，并在会计领域增加进入者中理想特质的普遍性。