文献翻译模板汪萍.doc

宁波大学科学技术学院本科毕业设计（论文）系列表格 2012届本科毕业设计（论文） 文 献 翻 译题目 宋体三号字 ，加粗 学 院 宋体四号字 专 业 宋体四号字 班 级 宋体四号字 学 号 宋体四号字 姓 名 宋体四号字 指导教师 宋体四号字 开题日期 宋体四号字 文献一： Commentary on Earnings ManagementThis commentary is intended to provide a framework for thinking about the implications of research design choices in earnings management research, to demonstrate some tradeoffs involved in making those choices, and to describe the connection between earnings management research and some other areas of accounting research. Understanding earnings management has implications for one of the central questions confronted by practicing professional accountants and academic accountants. That question concerns the influence and importance of accounting accruals in arriving at a summary measure of firm performance. Although the variety of accrual options available under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and the susceptibility of accruals to manipulation mean that the resulting accounting numbers could in principle be managed to the point of uninformativeness, available empirical evidence indicates that accruals do in fact have information content. That is, the opportunities for earnings management inherent in the current reporting system do not eliminate the usefulness of accounting earnings for valuing shares. Of course, research results to date have not shed any light on the issue of whether some change in the amount of managerial discretion might even add to the informativeness of accounting earnings. Framing questions of financial disclosure in terms ofthe existence and potential effects of earnings management helps us think about the following policy proposal: should accounting rules be promulgated in such a way that opportunities for earnings management are eliminated? This is another way of asking whether there are adverse consequences of earnings management, and if there are, whether accounting policy makers should attempt to eliminate them. By focussing on the costs and benefits of allowing for managerial discretion in the choice and application of accounting methods, researchers provide a framework for considering what we would have to give up to eliminate earnings managementfor example, compensation-based incentives to manage earnings would be eliminated if managerial incentive contracts never included earnings. But this approach restricts contracts to exclude a potentially very informative signal about managerial productivity, and it ignores the possibility that earnings management has the essentially beneficial role of providing a means for managers to reveal their private information.The remainder of this commentary will focus on three issues: defining the object of earnings management; exploring conditions giving rise to earnings management; and designing empirical tests of earnings management. A final section contains some conclusions and offers some speculations about the connections between earnings management research and other areas of accounting research.By earnings management I really mean disclosure management in the sense of a purposeful intervention in the external financial reporting process, with the intent of obtaining some private gain (as opposed to, say, merely facilitating the neutral operation of the process). This definition limits the discussion, in that it includes only the external reporting function and not, for example, managerial accounting reports or activities (such as lobbying the Financial Accounting Standards Board) designed to influence or change Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.The definition of earnings management adopted here does not rely on any particular concept of earnings; it is based on a view of accounting numbers as information. It also subsumes management of the components of earnings or of supplementary disclosures. Under this definition, earnings management could occur in any part ofthe external disclosure process, and could take a number of forms. A minor extension to the definition would encompass real earnings management, accomplished by timing investment or financing decisions to alter reported earningsor some subset of it. The resulting accounting numbers could be smoothed in the sense that their over-time variability is reduced, but they need not be.Different forms of accruals-based and real earnings management are not equally easy to discern. For example, it might be difficult to distinguish empirically between investment or production decisions (such as choosing the level of expenditures on research and development or on advertising, adding or dropping a product line, or acquiring another firm) that are undertaken purely to maximize share values and those undertaken purely to manage earnings. Within the opportunities offered by the accounting system, managers could manage earnings by selecting accounting methods within GAAP or by applying given methods in particular ways (for example, they could change estimates of service lives of depreciable assets). The former is relatively dramatic and transparent in the year of the change; it may be flagged by the auditor in a public way and will likely receive footnote discussion. The latter, which merely contributes to the application of a given method, may be harder for an outsider to observe. Given current disclosure requirements, the effects of both accounting method changes and changes in the ways given methods are applied are very hard to estimate in the years after the initial change.Throughout, I consider earnings management from an informational perspective, as distinguished from an economic income (sometimes called a tme income) perspective. This distinction matters because it has implications for interpreting results of earnings management research. Under a true income perspective, there is some number (such as economic income) which is purposefully distorted by earnings management. But there is another source of distortion as well: the rules of accrual accounting and GAAP lead to accounting numbers which measure true income with error, where the benchmark used to evaluate the degree of such measurement error is a true income metric. Therefore, the true income perspective implies that unmanaged earnings are noisy measures of a benchmark, and that managing earnings changes the properties of the noise (such as its amount, bias, or variance).Under an informational perspective, earnings are one of many signals which may be used to make certain decisions and judgments. One example is the valuation of securities. The informational perspective implies that the important attribute of accounting numbers is therefore their information content, a statistical property, so the question of measurement error or noise relative to a true income benchmark does not arise. The actual values of the numberswhich are of essential importance under a true income perspectiveare not an important attribute. Ta see this distinction, suppose every firm added $1 million to income, and this practice was public knowledge. No statistical relation except the ratio of two firms* incomes would be altered by this linear transformation, but the value would be distorted.The informational perspective on earnings management assumes managers have private information which they can use when they choose elements from a feasible set of reporting rules, under a given set of contracts that determine (for example) compensation and other sharing rules among stakeholders. Their choices include not only accounting procedures but also estimates required by those procedures, such as estimates of uncollectible accounts or warranty costs. No concept of earnings as a true value is needed, although the researcher might well be interested in considering what the financial process would produce in the absence of purposeful intervention.Most earnings management research assumes that both the feasible reporting set and the contract set are predeterminedthey are fixed and can be taken as given by one who wishes to manage earnings. In fact, of course, both contracts and the feasible reporting set change over time in response to economic and institutional pressures. These pressures could include either earnings management or the perception that earnings are being managed; in some sense, therefore, contracts and reporting rules are endogenous to the earnings management problem. But the reporting set or contract set may well be taken as fixed for a given reporting period, such as a year. In designing a research study, the advantage of taking the contract/reporting set as fixed is that the fixed sets imply rigidities or frictions which in tum imply an incentive for earnings management. This assumption permits a focus on earnings management as a response to environmental conditions, but it precludes a dynamic analysis of the evolution of contractual changes and other responses that might occur as a result of the perception that earnings are being managed.Researchers adopting the assumption of fixed contracting and fixed feasible reporting sets confront the question: how do these fixed sets create incentives for earnings management and what institutional features of the reporting environment make earnings management possible? This question has been addressed using analytic models. Such models are usually based on strong, perhaps unrealistic, assumptions about human behavior. They are therefore sometimes pejorativelylabeled stark and stylized representations. But this label overlooks the advantages of such representations; they impose disciplinon our intuition, so that we can see where intuition can and does lead us astray. Their sparenesswhich has been labeled by some as a lack of realismExposes what must be assumed to allow earnings management to arise in an economic setting. In other words, a well-constructed analytical model offers the advantage of stripping away second-order effects and extraneous considerations to reveal what drives the economic behavior being examined. It can also reveal when earnings management could be supplanted by other contractual arrangements.翻译一：盈余管理的评论这篇论文想要提供盈余管理的定义来为研究盈余管理学者提供一个思路，来论证一些交易相关的决策以及描述盈余管理的研究和其他有关会计领域研究的关系。理解盈余管理的含义是会计专家和会计学者重要问题之一。这个问题关系影响公司权责发生制下重要的决策。然而在公认会计准则下会计政策是可以灵活选择的和应计项目是容易被操纵的，这就意味着会计人员可以在符合原则的情况下不提供重要的信息，实证研究表明应计项目实际上是有另外的信息内容的。换句话说，在目前研究中表明盈余管理可以掩盖了股票真实的价值。当然，目前研究结果还没有阐明是否一些管理者的选择可能使会计利润不真实地对外报告。财务信息披露地问题是经常存在的，潜在地影响盈余管理帮助我们下列选择政策：会计准则是否应该在这种方式下被颁布因为盈余管理被忽略了？换个方式问盈余管理是否有不好的结果，如果有，是否会计准则的制定者试图忽略这个问题。管理者的自主选择会计核算方法重点关注的是成本和利润，研究者提供建议来避免盈余管理的产生例如，奖金依据动因来操纵利润是可以避免的如果管理者薪酬契约不包括利润。但这个限制了契约管理者绩效地重要依据，它忽略了盈余管理本质地利益者提供一种方法来显示内在信息的可能性。接下来这篇文章将要重点讨论3个问题：盈余管理的定义；探讨最有可能盈余管理的情况；实证分析盈余管理。最后一部分包括一些结论和提出思考有关盈余管理研究与其它会计领域研究的关系。我定义盈余管理是一种“披露管理”，是指管理层基于自身利益的驱动，在不违反会计准则的情况下，调整和控制对外报告。这个定义限制了讨论，它包括了对外报表地功能，例如会计交易试图影响或改变公认会计准则。在这里定义盈余管理不是依据对利润理论性的，依据的是会计数据的信息。它包括管理者组成利润或者增补地披露。在这个定义下，盈余管理以许多形式发生在对外披露的过程中。一个次要存在的问题来定义围绕着真正地盈余管理，通过关联方的投资或会计政策地选择来改变对外披露的利润或者隐藏利润。结果使会计利润可以看起来平滑实际上利润是减少的，然而他们没必要。不同形式的权责发生制和盈余管理是不容易被人所觉察的。例如，很难辨别投资和生产决策（例如选择支出额的标准和新产品的推广，减少或增加生产水平，或者对另外公司的影响。）采用会带来的最大价值和不采纳带来的机会成本。在提供的会计机会，管理者根据公认会计准则来选择会计政策或会计计量来操纵利润（例如，他们改变对资产折旧的估计）。这种形式相对而言比较明显在变化的当年，它有可能需要审计员的讨论和核实。后者只需要申请一下就可以改变计量，更难被外界所觉察。当前披露地要求，会计计量改变和会计方法的改变是很难估计。至始至终，我认为盈余管理是会计信息的观点，不同于经济收入的观点（有时被称为价值最大化）。这个区别主要是因为盈余管理的结果。在真实收入的观点下，有许多数据（例如经济收入）被人为的操纵通过盈余管理。但还有另外一种原因：权责发生制和公认会计准则导致实际的收入数据与应计收入不符，这是估计的基准度量真实地收入。因此，真实收入的观点暗是指不被操纵的利润是不妥的决策，操纵利润来改变资产的价值（例如，它的账面价值，偏见，或矛盾）。在信息观点下，利润是他们用来选择决策和判断的标准。一个例子就是股票的估计。一个数据统计表明信息观点暗指重要的原因是会计数据是管理者信息的绩效，因此决策关系真实的收入是不会升高的。真实数据地价值是非常重要的在真实收入的观点下不是重要的原因。假设每个公司增加1亿美元的收入，这是公众所知的。没有相关的数据除了两家公司的收入将要改变，但他们的价值将要被扭曲。盈余管理的财务信息观点认为管理者在与股东签订薪酬契约下为了当他们变动职务时他们可以利用来达到个人的利益在合乎原则的情况下。在签订契约下，他们的决策不仅仅是会计的程序而是生产品估计的需要，例如估计没有收集的会计账目或保单的成本。没有必要对利润定义，虽然学者对人为有目的性地操纵财务过程非常有兴趣。许多盈余管理的研究猜想合乎情理的报告准则和契约准则是预设的他们是固定的，可以用来操纵利润。实际上，契约和报告是始终来操纵的在外界的压力下。这种压力包括盈余管理和利润操纵的看法；因此，契约和报告准则可能内部危险的对与盈余管理。但报告形式或契约可能固定报告的期间，例如一年。在调查中，签订固定的契约就是盈余管理的动因。这个假设重点在盈余管理对外部环境条件的变化，但它对契约改变来操纵利润是行不通。研究者采用假定固定的契约和固定的合乎情理的报告面对下列问题：这个动因是怎样诱导产生盈余管理的？那种特点的机构可能产生盈余管理？这个问题运用研究模型。这种模型通常是有根据的，有可能不合乎情理的，来臆断人们的行为。他们通常是数据的理论。但是这忽视了事物好的一面；他们利用了我们的感觉，因此我们发现哪里有直觉和导致我们误入歧途。换句话说一个模型可以拆分二阶的影响和不相干的因素。它表明契约什么时候可以替代盈余管理。文献二：（宋体五号，另起一页）THE EFFECT OF BONUS SCHEMES ON ACCOUNTING DECISIONS1. Introduction Earnings-based bonus schemes are a popular means of rewarding corporate executives. Fox (1980) reports that in 1980 ninety percent of the one thousand largest U.S. manufacturing corporations used a bonus plan based on accounting earnings to remunerate managers. This paper tests the association between managers accrual and accounting procedure decisions and their income-reporting incentives under these plans. Earlier studies testing this relation postulate that executives rewarded by bonus schemes select income-increasing accounting procedures to maximize their bonus compensation.Their empirical results are conflicting. These tests, however, have several problems. First, they ignore the earnings definitions of the plans; earnings are often defined so that certain accounting decisions do not affect bonuses. For exampie, more than half of the sample plans collected for my study define bonus awards as a function of income before taxes. It is not surprising, therefore, that Hagerman and Zmijewski (1979) find no significant association between the existence of accounting-based compensation schemes and companies methods of recording the investment tax credit. Second, previous tests assume compensation schemes always induce managers to select income increasing accounting procedures. The schemes examined in my study also give managers an incentive to select income-decreasing proce-dures. For example, they typically permit funds to be set aside for compensation awards when earnings exceed a specified target. If earnings are so low that no matter which accounting procedures are selected target earnings will not be met, managers have incentives to further reduce current earnings by deferring revenues or accelerating write-offs, a strategy known as taking a bath. This strategy does not affect current bonus awards and increases the probability of meeting future earnings targets.Past studies do not control for such situations and, therefore, understate the association between compensation incentives and accounting procedure decisions. This study examines typical bonus contracts, providing a more complete analysis of their accounting incentive effects than earlier studies. The theory is tested using actual parameters and definitions of bonus contracts for a sample of 94 companies. Two classes of tests are presented: accrual tests and tests of changes in accounting procedures. I define accruals as the difference between reported earnings and cash flows from operations. The accrual tests compare the actual sign of accruals for a particular company and year with the predicted sign given the managers bonus incentives. The results are consistent with the theory. I also test whether accruals differ for companies with different bonus plan formats. The accrual differences provide further evidence of a relation between managers accrual decisions and their income-reporting incentives under the bonus plan. Tests using changes in accounting procedures suggest that managers decisions to change procedures are not associated with bonus plan incentives. However, additional tests find that changes in accounting procedures are related to the adoption or modification of a bonus plan. Section 2 outlines the provisions of bonus agreements. The accounting incentive effects generated by bonus plans are discussed in section 3. Section 4 describes the sample design and data collection, and section 5 reports the results of accrual tests. Tests of changes in accounting procedures are described in section 6. The conclusions are presented in section 7.2. Description of accounting bonus schemes Deferred salary payment, insurance plans, non-qualified stock options, restricted stock, stock appreciation rights, performance plans and bonus plans are popular forms of compensation. Two of these explicitly depend on accounting earnings: bonus schemes and performance plans. Performance plans award managers the value of performance units or shares in cash or stock if certain long-term (three or five years) earnings targets are attained. The earnings targets are typically written in terms of earnings per share, return on total assets, or return on equity. Bonus contracts have a similar format to performance contracts except that they specify annual rather than long-term earnings goals. A number of companies operate bonus and performance plans simulta- neously. Differences in earnings definitions and target horizons of these two plans make it difficult to identify their combined effect on managers accounting decisions. I therefore limit the study to firms whose only remuneration explicitly related to earnings is bonuses. Fox (1980) finds that in 1980 ninety percent of the one thousand largest U.S. manufacturing corporations used a bonus plan to remunerate managers, whereas only twenty-five percent used a performance plan. Bonus awards also tend to constitute a higher proportion of top executives co