decisions. Managers may not even internally project
cash flows for some investments: the biases
managers have for some ùpetû activities or personal
perquisites may make them ignore cash and profit
planning. Poor investments, however, will reveal
themselves in the future profits of the company.
Non-value-maximizing investments eventually
reduce earnings. This will result in lower stock prices
and may trigger shareholder actions to remove
directors and senior executives. To camouflage the
impact of negative or marginal NPV investments on
earnings, managers may employ accounting
procedures that increase reported income. These
ùinflatedû profit numbers may help assuage investors
and lead to higher market valuation than would
otherwise have been the case (assumes that
investors cannot completely unravel the earnings
management). This situation lead to my first
hypothesis that :