Pre-listing year earnings management and listing requirements : evidence from Kuwait

Abstract EN

This study investigates whether new listing Kuwaiti Shareholding Closed Companies (KSCCs) engage in opportunistic earnings management in the year before listing.

Six discretionary accruals models are used to estimate the earnings management for 68 listing firms.

Results based on parametric and non-parametric tests found some evidence to support the idea that earnings management had been exercised by KSCCs issuers in the pre-listing financial year.

This conclusion was based on the existence of significant positive discretionary accruals of the means and medians generated by models based on current accruals.