IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/joares/v41y2003i1p89-108.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Sale of Assets to Manage Earnings in Japan

Author

Listed:
  • Don Herrmann
  • Tatsuo Inoue
  • Wayne B. Thomas

Abstract

In this article we investigate Japanese managers’ use of income from the sale of fixed assets and marketable securities to manage earnings. The earnings management target examined is Japanese managers’ forecasts of current–year earnings. We find a negative relation between income from asset sales and management forecast error. When current reported operating income is below (above) management's forecast of operating income, firms increase (decrease) earnings through the sale of fixed assets and marketable securities. The results hold after controlling for expected future performance, debt–to–equity ratio, size, growth, and last year's income from asset sales.

Suggested Citation

  • Don Herrmann & Tatsuo Inoue & Wayne B. Thomas, 2003. "The Sale of Assets to Manage Earnings in Japan," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(1), pages 89-108, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:joares:v:41:y:2003:i:1:p:89-108
    DOI: 10.1111/1475-679X.00097
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-679X.00097
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1475-679X.00097?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ervin L. Black & Keith F. Sellers & Tracy S. Manly, 1998. "Earnings Management Using Asset Sales: An International Study of Countries Allowing Noncurrent Asset Revaluation," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(9-10), pages 1287-1317.
    2. Aboody, David & Barth, Mary E. & Kasznik, Ron, 1999. "Revaluations of fixed assets and future firm performance: Evidence from the UK1," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1-3), pages 149-178, January.
    3. Ervin L. Black & Keith F. Sellers & Tracy S. Manly, 1998. "Earnings Management Using Asset Sales: An International Study of Countries Allowing Noncurrent Asset Revaluation," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(9‐10), pages 1287-1317, November.
    4. Conroy, Robert & Harris, Robert S. & Park, Young S., 1993. "Published analysts' earnings forecasts in Japan: how accurate are they?," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 1(2), pages 127-137, May.
    5. Darrough, Masako N. & Pourjalali, Hamid & Saudagaran, Shahrokh, 1998. "Earnings management in Japanese companies," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 313-334.
    6. DeFond, Mark L. & Park, Chul W., 1997. "Smoothing income in anticipation of future earnings," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 115-139, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Juan Manuel García Lara & Beatriz García Osma & Belén Gill de Albornoz Noguer, 2006. "Effects of database choice on international accounting research," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 42(3‐4), pages 426-454, September.
    2. Mao, Yaping & Renneboog, Luc, 2015. "Do managers manipulate earnings prior to management buyouts?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 43-61.
    3. Lopes, Alexsandro Broedel & Walker, Martin, 2012. "Asset revaluations, future firm performance and firm-level corporate governance arrangements: New evidence from Brazil," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 53-67.
    4. Salvatore Madonna & Greta Cestari & Francesca Giuliani, 2021. "Asset revaluation: scelte manageriali in tempo di crisi," MANAGEMENT CONTROL, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2021(3), pages 41-64.
    5. Missonier-Piera, Franck, 2007. "Motives for fixed-asset revaluation: An empirical analysis with Swiss data," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 186-205.
    6. George Emmanuel Iatridis & George Kilirgiotis, 2012. "Incentives for fixed asset revaluations: the UK evidence," Journal of Applied Accounting Research, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 13(1), pages 5-20, May.
    7. Jean-Louis Paré & Frédéric Demerens, 2011. "Détecter les manipulations financières en France : Le cas d'une PME cotée sur Alternext," Post-Print hal-00650559, HAL.
    8. Oriol Amat & Catherine Gowthorpe, 2004. "Creative accounting: Nature, incidence and ethical issues," Economics Working Papers 749, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    9. Greiner, Adam J., 2015. "The effect of the fair value option on bank earnings and regulatory capital management: Evidence from realized securities gains and losses," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 33-41.
    10. Francesco Capalbo & Claudio Lupi & Margherita Smarra & Marco Sorrentino, 2021. "Elections and earnings management: evidence from municipally-owned entities," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 25(3), pages 707-730, September.
    11. Crisan Sorana Adina, 2013. "Can Asset Revaluation Be Manipulative? - A Case Study," Annals of Faculty of Economics, University of Oradea, Faculty of Economics, vol. 1(1), pages 1198-1209, July.
    12. Mohammad Reza Dalvi & Ebrahim Baghi, 2013. "Survey of Profit Smoothing through the Sale of Corporate Assets," International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Sciences, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Sciences, vol. 3(4), pages 208-214, October.
    13. Hervé Stolowy & Gaetan Breton, 2000. "A Framework for the Classification of Accounts Manipulations," Working Papers hal-00597249, HAL.
    14. Ole‐Kristian Hope, 2003. "Disclosure Practices, Enforcement of Accounting Standards, and Analysts' Forecast Accuracy: An International Study," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(2), pages 235-272, May.
    15. Sheng-Syan Chen & Yong-Chin Liu & I-Ju Chen, 2014. "Long-Run Stock Performance and Its Determinants for Asset Buyers," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(5-6), pages 685-716, June.
    16. Haw, In-Mu & Ho, Simon S.M. & Hu, Bingbing & Zhang, Xu, 2013. "Legal Institutions, Ownership Concentration, and Stock Repurchases Around the World: Signal Mimicking?," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 427-458.
    17. Rashid Zaman & Nader Atawnah & Muhammad Nadeem & Stephen Bahadar & Irfan Haider Shakri, 2022. "Do liquid assets lure managers? Evidence from corporate misconduct," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(7-8), pages 1425-1453, July.
    18. Ruslan Brukhanskyi, 2020. "Development Parameters of the Corporate Strategic Accounting and Analytical System of the Enterprise," Oblik i finansi, Institute of Accounting and Finance, issue 1, pages 13-19, March.
    19. Atik, Asuman, 2009. "Detecting income-smoothing behaviors of Turkish listed companies through empirical tests using discretionary accounting changes," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 20(5), pages 591-613.
    20. Dechow, Patricia & Ge, Weili & Schrand, Catherine, 2010. "Understanding earnings quality: A review of the proxies, their determinants and their consequences," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 344-401, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:joares:v:41:y:2003:i:1:p:89-108. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0021-8456 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.