So these practices are more easy to apply for managers when they use low-quality accounting standards. However, if managers are operating in countries with weak shareholder protection and low risk of litigation it might be tempting to use this type of earnings management even when high-quality accounting standards are used for the preparation of the financial statements. Due to the low risk of litigation the costs of non-compliance with accounting standards are low. The latter is referred to in the literature as GAAP application quality.