To provide evidence on the effects of the accounting
standard-setting process on accounting quality, we focus
our empirical tests on accounting quality metrics that
measure the extent to which earnings are managed. Beginning
with Arthur Levitt’s 1998 speech, The ‘‘Numbers
Game” (Levitt, 1998), there has been a heightened awareness
about earnings management. The public has seen a
number of major frauds involving earnings management
and regulators have undertaken renewed efforts to reduce
earnings management. We therefore investigate earnings
management. However, there are a number of approaches
to measuring earnings management. We limit our tests to
three measures of smoothing given the inherent problems
with an over-time study in isolating the effects of the
accounting standards on earnings management