Research design
Research design for tests related to FVA for trading securities
In the no earnings management scenario, there should be no negative correlation between
fair-value changes in trading securities and gains or losses from the sale of AFS securities.
Because positive fair-value changes in trading securities are usually not in conflict with
managers’ incentives to meet or beat earnings thresholds, earnings management is more
likely to occur when these changes are negative. We thus employ (1) to examine whether
firms that report a negative fair-value change in trading securities are more likely to sell
AFS securities for gains to reduce the impact of that change than their counterparts with
a positive fair-value change in trading securitie