To manage or reserve accruals? Evidence from a balanced-budget requirement reform

Earnings management detection through budget execution. Insights from Greek municipalities

“…The research stream that investigated the existence of EM in the LG context examined this behavior through different points of view. There are empirical studies (Table 1) that used only some specific accruals in order to detect EM (Stalebrink, 2007;Pilcher and Van Der Zahn, 2010;Arcas and Marti, 2016;Donatella et al, 2019;Donatella, 2020;Donatella et al, 2023), other studies that analyzed aggregate models (Ferreira et al, 2013(Ferreira et al, , 2020Beck, 2018;Cohen et al, 2019;Cohen and Malkogianni, 2021), a research paper that searched for discontinuities around zero (Cohen and Malkogianni, 2022) and a paper that evaluated items from budget formulation and execution (Anessi-Pessina and Sicilia, 2020).…”

“…There are empirical studies (Table 1) that used only some specific accruals in order to detect EM (Stalebrink, 2007; Pilcher and Van Der Zahn, 2010; Arcas and Marti, 2016; Donatella et al. , 2019; Donatella, 2020; Donatella et al ., 2023), other studies that analyzed aggregate models (Ferreira et al. , 2013, 2020; Beck, 2018; Cohen et al.…”

“…Prior research in this field documented the existence of EM within the public sector, and more specifically, in local governments (LGs). Most studies investigated EM by analyzing accrual-based accounting statements (Stalebrink, 2007;Ferreira et al, 2013Ferreira et al, , 2020Arcas and Mart ı, 2016;Beck, 2018;Donatella et al, 2019Donatella et al, , 2023Cohen et al, 2019;Donatella, 2020;Anessi-Pessina and Sicilia, 2020;Donatella and Tagesson, 2020;Malkogianni, 2021, 2022). Others examined modified-cash or modified-accrual information (Beck, 2018) and only a few studies utilized both accrual and cash-based statements (Anessi-Pessina and Sicilia, 2020).…”

“…Most studies investigated EM by analyzing accrual-based accounting statements (Stalebrink, 2007; Ferreira et al. , 2013, 2020; Arcas and Martí, 2016; Beck, 2018; Donatella et al ., 2019, 2023; Cohen et al. , 2019; Donatella, 2020; Anessi-Pessina and Sicilia, 2020; Donatella and Tagesson, 2020; Cohen and Malkogianni, 2021, 2022).…”

Guest editorial: From walking to running – What's the next step for earnings management research in public sector organizations?

“…More specifically, recently published empirical research has primarily been conducted in the context of subnational governments (e.g. Ferreira, 2023; Goto and Yamamoto, 2023; Donatella et al , 2024), or organizations operating within these governments (e.g. Langella et al , 2021; Anessi-Pessina and Steccolini, 2024), and government-owned enterprises (e.g.…”