Resultatmanipulering i olika institutionella och regulatoriska miljöer

Abstract

This study examines how regulatory and institutional environments influence earnings management among publicly listed companies. Prior literature shows that managers have incentives to manipulate earnings through discretionary accruals to influence how companies are perceived by external stakeholders. The opportunity to engage in earnings management is also affected by regulation and oversight, reflected in different regulatory environments and institutional factors. The study is based on an international sample of publicly listed companies from the United States, the EEA (EU, Iceland and Norway), and the United Kingdom during the period 2015-2024. Discretionary accruals are estimated using the Modified Jones Model and an extended version of the model, where discretionary accruals serve as a proxy for earnings management. The relationship between earnings management and regulatory environments as well as institutional factors is analyzed through several regression models that include control variables and fixed effects for industry and year. The results show that companies domiciled in the United States exhibit higher levels of discretionary accruals than companies in the EEA and the United Kingdom, although the differences are moderate. The study also finds significant differences in earnings management within the EEA and the United Kingdom. Among the institutional factors examined, press freedom and audit quality show the clearest association with lower levels of earnings management. The study contributes to the earnings management literature by combining a comparison of regulatory environments with an analysis of the impact of institutional factors on earnings management within an international sample.