Market Information about Firm's Fundamentals and Earnings Management: Evidence from Companies Listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE)

When investors have more information about the firm fundamentals which determine the financial situation of firm, they should be more capable of detecting earnings management and managers therefore will have less incentive to manage earnings. This paper empirically tests the impact of Market information about four important firms’ fundamentals on the level of earnings management. The results show that the firms are less likely to manage earnings when investors know more about operation cash flow and stockholders equity return. But there is no evidence to support this negative and significant influence in the case of two other examined fundamentals which are earnings quality and sale variation.