An Effective Model to Predict Cash Flow Based on a Comparison of the Relevant Models: Case of Tehran Stock Exchange

This paper studies the cash flows forecast models and compares the predictive ability of models based on absolute forecast error. Also in this paper, as the indicator of volatility of business environment, the effects of volatility of sales and volatility of operating profit have been used and the effect of firm size on predictive ability of each model has been considered. In order to study above mentioned, three following hypotheses have been tested in this paper: Hypothesis 1: the predictive ability of future cash flows based on accruals models is more than those models which only use the cash flows information. Hypothesis 2: the predictive ability of accruals based models and those models which only use the cash flows in their predictions, change as volatility of sales and volatility of operating profit. Hypothesis 3: the predictive ability of accruals based models and those models which only use the cash flows in their predictions, increase as the firm size increases.