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We define accrual duration as the length of time between an accrual and its associated cash flow. Accrual duration is inextricably linked to accrual discretion and accrual quality by the fundamentals of the accrual process—the recording of longer-duration accruals involves using longer-term estimates, which makes them relatively more discretionary and less reliable, ceteris paribus. We provide the theoretical development of this broad idea and demonstrate several empirical applications linking accrual duration to earnings persistence, Accounting and Auditing Enforcement Releases, asset write-offs, and the observed kink in the earnings distribution. A major advantage of the accrual duration approach is that it is quite general, which allows us to derive a powerful new model of total accruals discretion and quality as well as a novel measure of total accruals duration. Finally, we discuss how the accrual duration approach can illuminate numerous ongoing issues in accounting research.

A fundamental property of accrual accounting is to smooth temporary timing fluctuations in operating cash flows, indicating an inherent negative correlation between accruals and cash flows. We show that the overall correlation between accruals and cash flows has dramatically declined in magnitude over the past half century and has largely disappeared in more recent years. The adjusted R² from regressing (changes in) accruals on (changes in) cash flows drops from about 70% (90%) in the 1960s to near zero (under 20%) in more recent years. In exploring potential reasons for the observed attenuation, we find that increases in non-timing-related accrual recognition, as proxied by one-time and nonoperating items and the frequency of loss firm-years, explain the majority of the overall decline. On the other hand, temporal changes in the matching between revenues and expenses, and the growth of intangible-intensive industries play only a limited role in explaining the observed attenuation. Finally, the relative decline of the timing role of accruals does not appear to be associated with an increase in the asymmetrically timely loss recognition role.

Research on accounting accruals is pervasive. Yet the measurement and modeling of accruals has developed in an ad hoc manner, resulting in a fragmented and incomplete body of research. Our goal is to rectify this situation by (i) providing a comprehensive definition of accruals, (ii) formulating a corresponding empirical measure of accruals, (iii) offering two decompositions of our measure that encapsulate the major classes of accruals studied elsewhere, (iv) combining and expanding prior models of the fundamental determinants of accruals into one parsimonious model, and (v) identifying the primary determinants of each of the major classes of accruals. We close by providing guidance for researchers in tailoring the selection of accruals to the research question at hand.

We assess the role of both accruals manipulation (AM) and real activities manipulation (RAM) in inducing overvaluation at the time of a seasoned equity offering (SEO). Our results reveal that earnings management is most consistently and predictably linked with post-SEO stock market underperformance when it is driven by RAM; in particular, the opportunistic reduction of expenditures on R&D and selling, general, and administrative activities. Thus, overvaluation at the time of the SEO is more likely when managers actively engage in more opaque channels to overstate earnings. Our findings are particularly relevant because managers exhibit a greater propensity for RAM at the time of SEOs, even though RAM is more costly in the long run.

We examine the relation between managerial ability and earnings quality. We find that earnings quality is positively associated with managerial ability. Specifically, more able managers are associated with fewer subsequent restatements, higher earnings and accruals persistence, lower errors in the bad debt provision, and higher quality accrual estimations. The results are consistent with the premise that managers can and do impact the quality of the judgments and estimates used to form earnings.

Commonly used Jones-type discretionary accrual models applied in quarterly settings do not adequately control for nondiscretionary accruals that naturally occur due to firm growth. We show that the relation between quarterly accruals and backward-looking sales growth (measured over a rolling four-quarter window) and forward-looking firm growth (market-to-book ratio) is non-linear. Failure to control for the effects of firm growth and performance on innate accruals leads to excessive Type I error rates in tests of earnings management. We propose simple refinements to Jones-type models that deal with non-linear growth and performance effects and show that the expanded models are well-specified and exhibit high power in quarterly settings where one is testing for earnings management. The expanded models are able to identify the presence of earnings management in a sample of restatement firms. Our findings have important implications for the use of discretionary accrual models in earnings management research.

To deter financial misstatements, many companies have recently adopted compensation recovery policies—commonly known as \"clawbacks\"—that authorize the board to recoup compensation paid to executives based on misstated financial reports. Clawbacks have been shown to reduce financial misstatements and increase investors' confidence on earnings information. We show that the benefits come with an unintended consequence of certain firms substituting for accruals management with real transactions management (e.g., reduce research and development [R&D] expenditures), especially firms with strong incentives to achieve short-term earnings targets, such as firms with high growth or high transient institutional ownership. As such, the total amount of earnings management does not decrease subsequent to clawback adoption. We further show that although real transactions management temporarily boosts those clawback adopters' short-term profitability and stock performance, this trend reverses after three years. In summary, clawbacks may have unexpected effects for a subset of firms whose managers are under greater pressure to meet earnings goals.

Economics challenge the specification of discretionary accrual models. Since rent-seeking firms pursue differentiated business strategies, firms in the same industry experience idiosyncratic shocks due to heterogeneous economic fundamentals and hence have different accrual-generating processes. We present evidence that idiosyncratic shocks are widespread, propagate through multiple years of financial statements, and reduce accrual models' goodness of fit. This not only affects abnormal accrual estimates for the firm experiencing shocks, but also affects measurement of abnormal accruals for other firms in the industry. We show that idiosyncratic shocks not only add noise to abnormal accruals, but can also exacerbate bias in both unsigned and signed abnormal accruals. We propose ways to reduce accrual model misspecification.

Calls from practice suggest that audit committee members with industry expertise can improve audit committee effectiveness. Nevertheless, regulators and the extant literature have focused on the financial expertise of the audit committee. We posit that audit committee industry knowledge is valuable because accounting guidance, estimates, and oversight of the external auditor are often linked to a company's operations within a particular industry. Taking a holistic view, we examine two measures of financial reporting quality (financial restatements and discretionary accruals) and two measures of external auditor oversight (audit and nonaudit fees). As predicted, we find that audit committee members who are both accounting and industry experts perform better than those with only accounting expertise. We also find that in certain instances, supervisory experts who are also industry experts perform better than supervisory experts alone. Overall, these results suggest that industry expertise, when combined with accounting expertise, can improve the effectiveness of the audit committee in monitoring the financial reporting process.

We examine the associations between audit partner pre-client and client-specific experience and audit quality using data from Taiwan, where signing audit partner names are disclosed. Using discretionary accruals and interest rate spreads to proxy for audit quality and perceptions of audit quality, respectively, we find that both pre-client and client-specific experience improve audit quality and creditor perceptions of audit quality. We also find that audit partner pre-client experience is positively associated with audit quality early in the engagement, but not when the partner has been with the client for at least five years. Our findings provide evidence consistent with the assumption underlying the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s decision to require the disclosure of engagement partner names. They also suggest that pre-client experience cannot completely mitigate the loss of client-specific knowledge when partner or audit firm turnover occurs.