“…The variable BSIZE is the natural logarithm of the total number of directors to control for board size, while BINDEP denotes the fraction of independent directors to account for board independence. Studies show that the top manager's degree of corporate power, level of equitybased pay, and gender also affect earnings management behavior (see Chen, Lee, and Chou, 2015;Davidson et al, 2004;Harris, Karl, and Lawrence, 2019;Hsu et al, 2020). Therefore, we include DUAL to control for CEO duality (a lack of separation of CEO and board chair positions), EIN to control for CEO equity incentives (vega-delta ratio) (Appendix 2 explains the calculation of CEO vega and CEO delta in details), and FEMALE to control for the CEO's gender.…”