Fig. 9 shows the quartiles of the conditional distribution of other accruals by earnings portfolio. Other accruals are defined here as net income minus cash flow minus the change in non-cash working capital. The evidence shows a pronounced downward shift in the distribution of other accruals. A downward shift would not be expected if other accruals are used to manage earnings upward, but it would be expected if other accruals are not used to manage income and other accruals are negatively related to cash flow from operations. Indeed, there is a strong negative correlation ( - 0.36) between cash flows from operations and other accruals in our sample, and specifically within the interval of slightly positive earnings. 1 7 The negative correlation between cash flow from operations and other accruals accounts for both the average downward direction of the shift, and for the magnitude of the shift across quartiles (the most pronounced downward shift occurs for the lower quartile of the distribution of other accruals