3.2.2. Changes in working capital
Fig. 8 shows the quartiles of the conditional distributions of changes in working capital other than cash. Consistent with the prediction, there appears to be an upward shift of the conditional distribution between the portfolio immediately to the left of zero and the portfolio immediately to the right of zero,for the upper end of the conditional distribution. However, inconsistent with the prediction, the lower quartile of the distribution shifts downward for slightly positive observations. This inconsistency seems surprising given the evidence from ex ante levels of current assets and current liabilities, which strongly suggests that working capital is used in earnings manipulation