The effect of debts structure and capital cost of Algerian companies on earnings management

Abstract EN

The aim of this paper is to examine the effect of some financial characteristics (long term debts, short term debts, and capital cost) on earnings management.

The study employed 193 observations that concern 25 Algerian companies during 2007-2019, based on multiple regression.

According to the results, long term debts and short term debts do not affect earnings management in Algerian companies.

This can be explained by the difficulty to attract users' attention through earnings management in a way to cover the fact of financial structure, and the ence of a direct relationship of financial structure with earnings.

Contrarily, the capital cost affects positively the earnings management, due to the importance of capital cost as a criterion for financial and investment decisions, and the existence of a direct relationship between the capital cost and earnings.