Modeling default prediction with earnings management

Hsiou-Wei William Lin, Huai-Chun Lo and Ruei-Shian Wu

Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, 2016, vol. 40, issue PB, 306-322

Abstract: This study explores whether taking into account real earnings management improves specification of the default prediction model based on the Z-score methodology for Chinese listed companies. We demonstrate that the model proposed by Altman (1968) overestimates (underestimates) the Z-score and thus the survival probability for firms engaging in aggressive (minor or no) income-increasing manipulation. By contrast, our inclusion of the indicator variable for real earnings management considerably enhances the explanatory power of Z-score factors for firm survival/default. With respect to the ability to predict out-of-sample default, our findings suggest that the accounting-based credit scoring model adjusted for real earnings management unanimously yields a greater prediction accuracy rate and a lower false loan rejection rate than the unadjusted scoring model for financially non-distressed firms.

Keywords: Accrual-based earnings management; Default prediction model; Real earnings management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927538X16300051
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:pacfin:v:40:y:2016:i:pb:p:306-322

DOI: 10.1016/j.pacfin.2016.01.005

Access Statistics for this article

Pacific-Basin Finance Journal is currently edited by K. Chan and S. Ghon Rhee

More articles in Pacific-Basin Finance Journal from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().