1、 外文翻译 原文 Measuring the quality of earnings Material Source: Author: Khaled ElMoatasem Abdelghany Abstract Purpose Although the academic research on the quality of earnings has been improved by presenting different approaches of measurement, there is no agreed-upon generally accepted approach to meas
2、ure the earning quality. Aims to present results of an empirical study measuring the quality of earnings on companies listed in NYSE. Design/methodology/approach Uses a sample of 90 companies listed in the NYSE. The analysis is directed to reach a general assessment of the quality of earnings if the
3、re is a complete consistency among the three approaches, and if not, the quality of earnings is questionable and needs further analysis and investigations. Findings The results show that different approaches of measuring the quality of earning lead to different assessment, and one industry or one co
4、mpany can not be labeled as having low or high quality of earning based on the result of one approach only. The results also suggest that the stakeholders before making any financing, investing decision or taking any corrective action, have to use more than one approach to assess the quality of earn
5、ings. Originality/value Indicates that financial analysts and governmental agencies dealing with companies should apply more than one measure for the quality of earning in order to have strong evidence about the level of quality before taking any corrective action or making any decision related to t
6、hose companies. 1. Introduction Generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) offer some flexibility in preparing the financial statements and give the financial managers some freedom to select among accounting policies and alternatives. Earning management uses the flexibility in financial reporti
7、ng to alter the financial results of the firm (Ortega and Grant, 2003). In other words, earnings management is manipulating the earning to achieve a predetermined target set by the management. It is a purposeful intervention in the external reporting process with the intent of obtaining some private
8、 gain (Schipper, 1989). Levit (1998) defines earning management as a gray area where the accounting is being perverted; where managers are cutting corners; and, where earnings reports reflect the desires of management rather than the underlying financial performance of the company. The popular press
9、 lists several instances of companies engaging in earnings management. Sensormatic Electronics, which stamped shipping dates and times on sold merchandise, stopped its clocks on the last day of a quarter until customer shipments reached its sales goal. Certain business units of Cendant Corporation i
10、nflated revenues nearly $500 million just prior to a merger; subsequently, Cendant restated revenues and agreed with the SEC to change revenue recognition practices. AOL restated earnings for $385 million in improperly deferred marketing expenses. In 1994, the Wall Street Journal detailed the many w
11、ays in which General Electric smoothed earnings, including the careful timing of capital gains and the use of restructuring chares and reserves, in response to the article, General Electric reportedly received calls from other corporations questioning why such common practices were “front-page” news
12、. Earning management occurs when managers use judgment in financial reporting and in structuring transactions to alter financial reports to either mislead some stakeholders about the underlying economic performance of the company or to influence contractual outcomes that depend on reported accountin
13、g numbers (Healy and Whalen, 1999). Magrath and Weld (2002) indicate that abusive earnings management and fraudulent practices begins by engaging in earnings management schemes designed primarily to “smooth” earnings to meet internally or externally imposed earnings forecasts and analysts expectatio
14、ns. Even if earnings management does not explicitly violate accounting rules, it is an ethically questionable practice. An organization that manages its earnings sends a message to its employees that bending the truth is an acceptable practice. Executives who partake of this practice risk creating a
15、n ethical climate in which other questionable activities may occur. A manager who asks the sales staff to help accelerate sales one day forfeits the moral authority to criticize questionable sales tactics another day. Earnings management can also become a very slippery slope, which relatively minor
16、accounting gimmicks becoming more and more aggressive until they create material misstatements in the financial statements (Clikeman, 2003) The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued three staff accounting bulletins (SAB) to provide guidance on some accounting issues in order to prevent the
17、 inappropriate earnings management activities by public companies: SAB No. 99 “Materiality”, SAB No. 100 “Restructuring and Impairment Charges” and SAB No. 101 “Revenue Recognition”. Earnings management behavior may affect the quality of accounting earnings, which is defined by Schipper and Vincent
18、(2003) as the extent to which the reported earnings faithfully represent Hichsian economic income, which is the amount that can be consumed (i.e. paid out as dividends) during a period, while leaving the firm equally well off at the beginning and the end of the period. Assessment of earning quality
19、requires sometimes the separations of earnings into cash from operation and accruals, the more the earnings is closed to cash from operation, the higher earnings quality. As Penman (2001) states that the purpose of accounting quality analysis is to distinguish between the “hard” numbers resulting fr
20、om cash flows and the “soft” numbers resulting from accrual accounting. The quality of earnings can be assessed by focusing on the earning persistence; high quality earnings are more persistent and useful in the process of decision making. Beneish and Vargus (2002) investigate whether insider tradin
21、g is informative about earnings quality using earning persistence as a measure for the quality of earnings, they find that income-increasing accruals are significantly more persistent for firms with abnormal insider buying and significantly less persistent for firms with abnormal insider selling, re
22、lative to firms which there is no abnormal insider trading. Balsam et al. (2003) uses the level of discretionary accruals as a direct measure for earning quality. The discretionary accruals model is based on a regression relationship between the change in total accruals as dependent variable and cha
23、nge in sales and change in the level of property, plant and equipment, change in cash flow from operations and change in firm size (total assets) as independent variables. If the regression coefficients in this model are significant that means that there is earning management in that firm and the ea
24、rnings quality is low. This research presents an empirical study on using three different approaches of measuring the quality of earnings on different industry. The notion is; if there is a complete consistency among the three measures, a general assessment for the quality of earnings (high or low)
25、can be reached and, if not, the quality of earnings is questionable and needs different other approaches for measurement and more investigations and analysis. The rest of the paper is divided into following sections: Earnings management incentives, Earnings management techniques, Model development,
26、Sample and statistical results, and Conclusion. 2. Earnings management incentives 2.1 Meeting analysts expectations In general, analysts expectations and company predictions tend to address two high-profile components of financial performance: revenue and earnings from operations. The pressure to me
27、et revenue expectations is particularly intense and may be the primary catalyst in leading managers to engage in earning management practices that result in questionable or fraudulent revenue recognition practices. Magrath and Weld (2002) indicate that improper revenue recognition practices were the
28、 cause of one-third of all voluntary or forced restatements of income filed with the SEC from 1977 to 2000. Ironically, it is often the companies themselves that create this pressure to meet the markets earnings expectations. It is common practice for companies to provide earnings estimates to analy
29、sts and investors. Management is often faced with the task of ensuring their targeted estimates are met. Several companies, including Coca-Cola Co., Intel Corp., and Gillette Co., have taken a contrary stance and no longer provide quarterly and annual earnings estimates to analysts. In doing so, the
30、se companies claim they have shifted their focus from meeting short-term earnings estimates to achieving their long-term strategies (Mckay and Brown, 2002) 6. Conclusion This research presents an empirical study about the use of different measure of quality of earnings on different industries. The n
31、otion is; since there is no agreed-upon definition or technique to measure the quality of earnings, one company or one industry cannot be labeled as having low quality of earnings based on one technique of measurement. In another words, the company or the industry can be judged as having low or high
32、 quality or earnings only if there is consistency among the results of more than one approach or technique for measurement. This research concludes that the financial analysts and any governmental agency dealing with the company should apply more than one measure for the quality of earning in order
33、to have strong evidence about the level of quality before taking any corrective action or making any decision related to that company. If one company is having low quality of earning according to one technique and high quality of earnings according to another, the stakeholders cannot have a final co
34、nclusion about that company and they need more investigations and analysis to assess the quality of earnings. 译文 衡量盈余质量 资料来源 : 作者： Khaled ElMoatasem Abdelghany 摘要 目的 虽然对盈余质量的学术研究已经通过不同的测量方法进行过完善，但是却没有一种普遍的可接受方法来衡量盈余质量。旨在对目前纽约证券交易所上市的公司进行实证研究来衡量盈余质量。 设计 /方法 /方式 使用的 90 家公司在纽约证券交易所上市的样本。 分析是针对达到盈余质量的总体
35、评价是否在三种方法中完全一致，如果没有，盈余质量问题，需要进一步分析和调查。 结果 结果显示，衡量盈余质量的不同途径导致不同的评估，一个行业或一家公司不能被标记为具有高或低盈余质量的基础上，只有一种方法的结果。研究结果还表明，在作出任何融资，投资决策或采取任何纠正行动的有关各方，必须使用一种以上的方法来评估盈余质量。 原创性 /价值 表示，金融分析师和政府机构处理公司应使用一个以上的盈余质量的措施，才能在对这些公司采取任何纠正行动或作出任何决定前，必须取得足够的关于盈余质量水平 的证据， 简介 一般公认会计原则（ GAAP）会给予准备财务报表的财务管理人员一定的灵活性由其自由选择其中会计政策和
36、办法。盈余管理使用了财务报告的灵活性来改变公司（奥尔特加和格兰特， 2003 年）的财务业绩。 换句话说，盈余管理是操作收入实现 预定的管理层设定的目标。这是有目的的干预外部的报表来意图获取个人利益（施舟， 1989）。 莱维特（ 1998）定义盈余管理为一个会计中正在堕落的灰色领域，那里的经理们偷工减料，那里的盈利报告知识反映了管理的欲望，而不是这家公司潜在的财务表现。 大众媒体列出了几家公司的盈余 管理的案例。 森所马迪克电子，在销售的商品上加盖了运输的日期和时间，停在了一个季度的最后一天，直到客户的货物达到其销售目标。胜腾公司的某些业务部门在公司合并之前虚增收入近 5 亿美元其后，圣达特
37、及重列收入证券交易委员会同意改变收入确认的做法。美国在线重列递延不当营销费用收入为 3.85 亿美元。 1994 年，华尔街日报详细介绍了许多方法，使通用电气平滑收益，包括仔细的资本收益的时间选择 和杂工和储量的使用，对文章的反应，据报道，通用电气 从其他公司已接来电中询问，为何这样的普遍的做法作为“头版”的消息。 盈余管理重现的情 况是：当经理人在财务报告中使用的判断或者构建会报来改变财务报告，要么误导利害关系方对本公司相关的经济表现 ，要么影响了基于会计报告数字的合同结果（希利 和惠伦， 1999）。 马格拉斯和韦德（ 2002）表明，滥用的盈余管理与不诚实的惯例 开始于从事设计盈余管理计
38、划 的目的是为了“平稳”收入，以满足内部或外部强加的收益预测和分析师的预期。 即使盈余管理没有明确违反会计准则，但是它是在道德上属于可疑的做法。一个组织在盈余管理时发送 其雇员的信息来弯曲的真相是可以接受的做法。 管理人员谁参与了这一做法，就是创造一个危险的道德氛围，在这里其他可疑的活动可能也会发生。一位管理人员要求销售人员以丧失道德权力来增加一天内的销售业绩，并且评论其可以的销售战术。 盈余管理也成为一个非常光滑的斜坡，而相对的 小会计的噱头越来越积极，直到他们在财务报表建立重大错误陈述（克里克曼， 2003 年） 美国证券交易委员会（ SEC）发出的三名工作人员的会计公告（ SAB）提供一
39、些会计问题的指导意见，以防止 上市公司不恰当的盈余管理活动： SAB 的第99 号 “物质”， SAB 第 100 号“重组费用和资产减值”和 SAB 第 101 号“收入确认”。 盈余管理行为可能影响会计管理质量， 它是由席佩尔和文森特（ 2003 年）定义的在何种程度上的报告盈利忠实代表 海赤森 的经济收入，这是金额可以在一段时期内被消耗（即支付股利），即离开公司收入的开始和结束的期限。 盈余质量的评估有时需要将收入中现金 从操作及预提中分离出来，更多操作外的现金收益 ，更高的盈余质量。正如彭曼（ 2001）指出，会计盈余质量分析的目的是区分“硬”数字所造成的现金流和“软”数字所造成的权责
40、发生制会计。 盈余质量的评估上，可持久性的收入为重点，在决策过程中高盈余质量是具有持续性和 非常有用的。 本尼舒和瓦古斯（ 2002）调查内幕交易信息是否在 盈余质量中使用收入的可持续性来衡量盈余质量， 他们发现，收入增加的应计项目在反常的知情人购买的情况下极大增加了公司的持续性，相反的其在反常的知情人卖出的情况下极大降低了公司的持续性，取决于公司是否存在任何不正常的内幕交易。 贝尔萨么等 （ 2003 年）使用的可操纵应计利润作为直接衡量盈余质量。该模型是基于可操纵应计利润的回归关系， 两者之间的总应计量为因变量，对销售的变动 改变物业，厂房及设备，现金流量变化的水平在企业规模（总资产）中作
41、为独立变量的变化。 如果在此模型中回归系数是显著的，这意味着该公司管理有盈余管理以及盈余质量较低。 本研究提出三种不同的使用方法的实证研究衡量不同行业的盈余质量。 这一概念是，假设有这 三项措施完全一致，一个普通的盈余质量评估（高或低）可以达到，如果没有，盈余质量是有疑问的并且需要其它不同的测量方法和更多调查分析。 本文的其余部分分为以下部分：盈余管理激励机制，盈余管理技术，模式的发展，抽样调查，统计结果和结论。 结论：本研究提出了一种对不同的盈余质量测量方法对不同行业的收益的实证研究。这一概念，因为没有商定定义或技术来衡量盈余质 量，一家公司或一个产业不能基于一种测量技术来表明具有低盈余质量。 换句话说，公司或行业， 如果有一个以上的 测量方法或技术，并且结果一致，才能被判断其盈余质量的高低。 本研究的结论是，财务分析师和任何政府机构处理公司时，在对公司采取任何矫正或者做出任何决定之前应该使用一个以上的盈余质量的方法来获取对盈余质量水平的强力证据。如果一家公司通过一项技术而证明低的盈余质量或者通过其他技术来证明高的盈余质量，股东就不能有关于这公司的最后结论，他们需要更多的调查和分析，评估盈余。
