Variables: Can Accounting Data Be Used to Detect Earnings Manipulation? If financial statement manipulations encompass not only earnings but also other signals that investors and analysts rely on, then the discriminatory power of accounting
data is diminished, the results of this study are biased against rejection of a null hypothesis on the variables’ coefficients, and the usefulness of accounting information for detecting earnings manipulation is limited. In the absence of an economic theory of manipulation, I relied on three sources for choosing explanatory variables bas on financial statement data. First, I considered signals about future prospects that appear in the academic and practitioner literature.7 The presumption was that earnings manipulation is more likely when companies’ future prospects are poor. Second, I considered variables based on cash flows and accruals (Healy 1985; Jones 1991). Third, I considered variables drawn from positive theory research, which hypothesizes contract-based incentives for earnings management (Watts and Zimmerman 1986).