For example, a firm which has high levels of receivables is likely to find it less costly to manage earnings through changes in receivables. Firms that can manage earnings at low cost are more likely to manage earnings to move from negative pre-managed earnings to positive post-managed earnings. If the levels of current assets and current liabilities serve as proxies for the cost of earnings management through changes in working capital, we expect to find lower pre-managed levels of current assets and current liabilities for firms in the intervals immediately to the left of zero post-managed
earnings and higher levels in the intervals immediately to the right of zero.