Gerenciamento de accruals discricionários trimestrais no mercado Latino-Americano

Abstract

Based on the Agency Theory, the objective of this study is to analyze the quality of Latin American countries associated with the management of quarterly results of publicly traded companies. For this, 457 companies presented in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico were selected, and the quarterly discretionary accruals were estimated as a proxy for earnings management through the model of Pae (2005), with information collected from information from Thomson Reuters ®, as well as the quality of audit reports between 2015 and 2019. Through the Dunn-Bonferroni test (dunn test) the results indicate that the average, in addition to being higher, the fourth quarter discretionary accrual level is significantly different from all the other quarters, as well as the first quarter is significantly different from the second and third quarters. Regarding countries, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, however, similar levels of earnings management, no, higher levels of quality compared to Argentina. These findings include those countries with higher audit quality are presented with lower levels of quarterly earnings management, in countries, with a peak in the fourth quarter. This result contributes to the literature by showing that earnings management by discretionary accruals are different across quarters and countries, as well as demonstrating to users of accounting information that both the discretionary behavior of these accruals and the quality of audits can be in the quality of final decision.