Resultatmanipulering i olika institutionella och regulatoriska miljöer

Sammanfattning

This study examines how regulatory and institutional environments influence earningsmanagement among publicly listed companies. Prior literature shows that managers haveincentives to manipulate earnings through discretionary accruals to influence how companiesare perceived by external stakeholders. The opportunity to engage in earnings management isalso affected by regulation and oversight, reflected in different regulatory environments andinstitutional factors.The study is based on an international sample of publicly listed companies from the UnitedStates, the EEA (EU, Iceland and Norway), and the United Kingdom during the period2015-2024. Discretionary accruals are estimated using the Modified Jones Model and anextended version of the model, where discretionary accruals serve as a proxy for earningsmanagement. The relationship between earnings management and regulatory environments aswell as institutional factors is analyzed through several regression models that include controlvariables and fixed effects for industry and year.The results show that companies domiciled in the United States exhibit higher levels ofdiscretionary accruals than companies in the EEA and the United Kingdom, although thedifferences are moderate. The study also finds significant differences in earningsmanagement within the EEA and the United Kingdom. Among the institutional factorsexamined, press freedom and audit quality show the clearest association with lower levels ofearnings management. The study contributes to the earnings management literature bycombining a comparison of regulatory environments with an analysis of the impact ofinstitutional factors on earnings management within an international sample.