The Effect of Financial Leverage and other firm’s characteristics on Real Earnings Management and Accrual‌ Earnings Management: An Empirical Study on listed Firms in the Egyptian Stock Exchange

Abstract

This research empirically examines the effect of financial leverage and other firm’s characteristics on the Real and Accrual based earnings management using a sample of Egyptian listed firms for 3 year’s period starting from 2015 till 2017. The research investigates whether Egyptian firms use the Real earnings management (REM) to replace the Accrual-based earnings management (AEM) for earnings manipulation. The empirical results indicate that Egyptian firms use both the REM Real and the AEM to achieve its earnings objectives. In addition, the empirical results have found positive relationships between the financial leverage and both forms of earnings management techniques (the REM and the AEM); which is consistent with the debt hypothesis. The empirical results have also found a negative relationship between the both forms of earnings management (the REM and the AEM) and the firm’s Audit quality, and the firm’s size. However, the relationship is insignificant between the both forms of earnings management (the REM and the AEM) and the firm’s age, dividends, and growth. Moreover, the results indicate that highly leveraged firms engage more in Accrual based earnings management than the Real earnings management.