The model assumes that normal accruals are positively related to change in
revenues, less the change in accounts receivable, and negatively related to the capital
intensity of the firm. Following Larcker and Richardson (2004), book-to-market ratio
(BM) is used as a proxy for growth, and we expect it to be positively related to total
accruals. We also include current operating cash flows (OCF) as an additional variable
to control for extreme level performance (Dechow et al., 1995), and expect OCF to be
negatively associated with total accruals.