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The Management of Nonearnings Measures: Evidence from Initial Public Offering Firms

Fri, April 5, 10:45am to 12:00pm, Hyatt Regency Savannah, TBA

Abstract

Analyzing data from 1987-2014, we find that initial public offering (IPO) firms do not manage earnings upward using accruals. On the contrary, they engage in earnings decreasing activities such as spending more than expected in discretionary expenses, especially R&D in the IPO year. This finding is in contrast to the prevailing view that IPO firms engage in upward earnings management. Moreover, we find that these firms opportunistically increase sales via premature revenue recognition and other activity-based sales manipulation. For IPO firms in their early life cycle stage, our finding of upward sales manipulation is consistent with the strategic emphasis prescribed by the life cycle theory. We further document the divergent strategic behavior between high-tech and non-high-tech IPOs. While high-tech IPOs exhibit no significant abnormal accruals, non-high-tech IPOs do. Both subgroups manage sales upward, but only high-tech IPOs incurred abnormal R&D when the age of IPOs is considered in the model. Last, we provide evidence that the abnormal accruals of non-high-tech IPO firms are attributable to opportunistic earnings management rather than normal economic activities.

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