DISCRETIONARY ACCRUALS, LIQUIDITY AND CORPORATE GOVERNANCE INDEX IN BRAZIL

Download This Article

Abstract

This study investigates if the level of discretionary accruals (DAs) is different for companies whose corporate governance level is certified by Bovespa compared to those ones that are not. And also for companies whose stocks negotiated at Bovespa have high liquidity compared to the ones with low liquidity. The main purpose is to comprehend the phenomenon of accounting choices (measured as DAs), its incentives and counter-incentives. In this context, the issues were: i) Is there any difference of DAs intensity between certified and non-certified companies, considering the corporate governance level?; ii) Is there any difference of DAs intensity with high liquidity stocks at Bovespa and those ones with low liquidity? This research took into consideration Jones` original model (1991), a sample with 1,791 observations collected from 1997 to 2004. Empirical results from our study show that there is no significant statistic difference in the level of DAs between the firms listed or not in the corporate governance index. This suggests the need to consider incentives and counter-incentives from the capital market to those different set of firms, in relation with accounting choices.

Keywords: Discretionary Accruals, Earnings Management, Liquidity, Corporate Governance, Capital Market

How to cite this paper: Cardoso, R. L., de Aquino, A. C. B., de Almeida, J. E. F., & das Neves, A. J. B. (2008). Discretionary accruals, liquidity and corporate governance index in Brazil. Corporate Ownership & Control, 5(3), 26-33. https://doi.org/10.22495/cocv5i3p3