Fig. 7 shows quartiles of the conditional distributions of cash flow from operations for portfolios formed on the earnings variable. Consistent with the prediction, the quartiles of the distribution shift upward between the portfolio immediately to the left of zero and the portfolio immediately to the right of zero, particularly for the median and the upper quartile. Thus, we find evidence consistent with the manipulation of cash flow from operations to effectively move observations from small losses to small positive earnings. However, a closer examination of Fig. 7 reveals that if one considers an extrapolation of the trend from adjacent earnings intervals, the upward shift for the median and the upper quartile of cash from operations for slightly positive earnings is at least partly due to the preceding downward shifts for the portfolios with slightly negative earnings. We interpret this evidence as combining features of both the results and the costs of earnings management. The firms that manipulate earnings through increases in cash flow from operations are likely to be the firms
with the highest pre-managed cash flow from operations, i.e. these firms are likely to be concentrated in the upper half of the conditional distributions. The move of these firms from slightly negative earnings to slightly positive earnings explains the upward shift in quartiles between the left and the right side of zero. The absence of the manipulator firms from the portfolios of slightly negative post-managed earnings explains the downward jumps in the distributions of cash flows for these portfolios. This interpretation is further supported by the fact that medians and upper quartiles of conditional distributions of cash flows from the previous year (not presented here) show the same downward shift for intervals immediately left of zero, suggesting that firms which did not manage earnings tend to have lower levels of cash flows and presumably faced higher costs to manipulate earnings upwards.