The detection of real earnings management in MENA countries: the case of Tunisia

Sarra Elleuch Hamza and Sondos Bannouri

Afro-Asian Journal of Finance and Accounting, 2015, vol. 5, issue 2, 135-159

Abstract: This paper examines the real earnings management activities of 76 Tunisian public offering firms before and after the implementation of the financial security law, over the ten-year period (2003 to 2012). We measure real earnings management through sales manipulation and sales investments and assets following Roychowdhury (2006) and Zang (2012). The results show that after the implementation of the Financial System Reform Actin 2005, Tunisian managers started using sales manipulation as tools of real earnings management. The sale of assets or investment has no effect on their behaviour. These results suggest that Tunisian firms tend to use real activities manipulation in a tightened regulatory environment.

Keywords: real earnings management; public offering companies; Financial System Reform Act; Tunisia; MENA countries; Middle East; North Africa; financial security law; sales manipulation; sale of investments; sale of assets; regulation. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=69889 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:ids:afasfa:v:5:y:2015:i:2:p:135-159

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Afro-Asian Journal of Finance and Accounting from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sarah Parker ().