Controls
Several studies identify incentives to manage earnings using a sample of companies that had to restate their financial statements. Dechow et al. (1996) suggest four incentives for managers to manipulate earnings: the demand for external financing, executive compensation plans, insider trading, and the avoidance of debt covenants. Of these incentives, Dechow et al. (1996) find that only the demand for external financing is an important determinant of earnings management and, accordingly, we adopt the variable as a control variable in the present study. In addition, Richardson et al. (2002) and DeFond and Jiambalvo (1991) identify the incentive for companies to maintain earnings growth as a determinant of earnings management. Moreover, Richardson et al. (2002) report that the incentive to manage earnings in order to meet analysts’ forecasts is an important determinant of earnings management. Because earnings management is likely to increase the probability of restating earnings, we control for the following incentives in order to improve the power of our tests.