The pricing of the real earnings managementevidence from Malaysian stock exchang

Abstract EN

The purpose of the study: This study aims to investigate the usage of real earnings management in the listed companies in the Malaysian stock market and whether this usage is informative or opportunistic from the capital market perspective.

Methodology of the study: The study is conducted into two stages; in the first stage we used Roychowdhury model (2006) to estimate three measures of REM namely; price discounts, discretionary expenses, and manufacturing cost by using a sample from the manufacturing industries for the period from 2002 – 2010.

In the second stage, univeriate and multivariate analyses are used to test the research hypotheses.

The findings of the study: The findings of the study present clear evidence about the opportunistic use of the REM to affect the accounting earnings.

While, in regard of the capital market perspective, we found that the investors are unaware of the REM and they are misled by such practices because they rely heavily on the fixed number of earnings.

Thus, the findings provide evidence about the managers’ tendency to use REM techniques opportunistically, but the market is unable to evaluate such practices correctly.

The originality of the study: While most of the prior studies on REM investigated REM practices from managerial incentive perspective or contractual perspective, this study examines the REM from the market or outsiders perspective.

In addition, it is one of the first studies to examine the REM, upon the researcher knowledge, in the Malaysian market.

The limitation of the study: due to the fact that REM is not observable we can’t exclude the measurement error completely in estimating the REM.