The following post comes to us from Ilia Dichev, Professor of Accounting at Emory University; John Graham, Professor of Finance at Duke University; Campbell Harvey, Professor of Finance at Duke University; and Shivaram Rajgopal, Professor of Accounting at Emory University.
While hundreds of research papers discuss earnings quality, there is no agreed-upon definition. We take a unique perspective on the topic by focusing our efforts on the producers of earnings quality: Chief Financial Officers. In our paper, The Misrepresentation of Earnings, which was recently made publicly available on SSRN, we explore the definition, characteristics, and determinants of earnings quality, including the prevalence and identification of earnings misrepresentation. To do so, we conduct a large-scale survey of 375 CFOs on earnings quality. We supplement the survey with 12 in-depth interviews with CFOs from prominent firms.