We provide prevalence estimates for five forms of earnings manipulation based on executives’ reports about their firms’ actual reporting practices. After preregistering our methods and analyses via the Journal of Accounting Research’s registration-based editorial process, we recruit nearly a thousand executives from firms listed in the Russell 3000 Index to participate in either a survey or a list experiment; the hallmark of the latter being additional privacy protections designed to promote honest disclosure about self-incriminating information. In our survey, 26.8% of executives disclose at least one form of earnings manipulation at their firm in the 2018–2023 period: 18.0% report changing an operational activity to meet a near-term earnings target at the expense of long-term value (i.e., real earnings management), 8.8% report intentionally obfuscating unfavorable information, 6.6% report manipulating accruals, 3.9% report withholding material information, and 0.0% report accounting fraud. Our list experiment produces an economically higher result in two cases, estimating that 29.9% of firms engaged in real earnings management and 12.4% committed accounting fraud over the same time period. We conclude that while a traditional survey can provide credible lower-bound estimates for the prevalence of many forms of earnings manipulation, list experiments encourage more honest disclosure in some cases.

中文翻译：

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衡量收益操纵的普遍性：一种新颖的方法


我们根据高管关于其公司实际报告实践的报告，为五种形式的收益操纵提供了普遍估计值。在通过 Journal of Accounting Research 基于注册的编辑流程预先注册我们的方法和分析后，我们从罗素 3000 指数列出的公司招募了近 1000 名高管参与调查或名单实验;后者的特点是额外的隐私保护措施，旨在促进诚实披露使自己入罪的信息。在我们的调查中，26.8% 的高管透露，在 2018 年至 2023 年期间，他们的公司至少存在一种形式的收益操纵行为：18.0% 的高管表示以牺牲长期价值为代价（即实际盈余管理）改变运营活动以实现近期收益目标，8.8% 的高管表示故意混淆不利信息，6.6% 的高管表示操纵应计项目，3.9% 的高管表示隐瞒重大信息， 0.0% 报告会计欺诈。我们的列表实验在两个案例中产生了经济上更高的结果，估计在同一时期，29.9% 的公司从事实际盈余管理，12.4% 的公司犯下了会计欺诈行为。我们得出的结论是，虽然传统调查可以为多种形式的收入操纵的普遍性提供可信的下限估计，但在某些情况下，列表实验鼓励更诚实地披露。