There are two indicators used for measuring
earnings management in this study. The first
indicator is earnings smoothing, which consists of
three metrics [Chen, Tang, Jiang and Lin, 2010].
The first metric is the variability of the change in
net income scaled by total assets, adjusted from
Lang, Raedy and Wilson (2006). High variability is
consistent with less earnings smoothing [Leuz et
al, 2003; Ball and Shivakumar, 2005, 2006; Barth
et al., 2008].