Earnings quality under financial crisis: A global empirical investigation

• During the financial crisis, earnings quality is decreased.
• Managers choose more aggressive conservatism to cope with recession.
• A lower level of earnings predictability is reported during the financial crisis.
• Strong legal enforcement is linked to real smoothing and higher earnings quality.
• Weak legal enforcement is linked to artificial smoothing and lower earnings quality.

This study investigates the impact of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 on earnings quality in publicly listed firms in advanced countries as per level of investor protection. The sample is categorized into three clusters. Cluster 1 is referred as outsider economies with strong outsider protection and legal enforcement and clusters 2 and 3 are referred as insider economies with better and weaker legal enforcement systems respectively. Using linear regression analysis, 137,091 firm-years observations are analyzed and the earnings quality is examined by using conservatism, value relevance, accruals quality, earnings persistence, earnings predictability, loss avoidance analysis and earnings smoothness. The results show that during the financial crisis, earnings quality is decreased. However, this deterioration on earnings quality appears to be more severe in clusters 2 and 3 which are characterized by medium and weak shareholder protection. Particularly, for all clusters, the study shows that in an attempt to cope with recession, managers have an incentive to choose more aggressive conservatism, lower the earnings predictability and book more accruals. Countries in clusters 2 and 3 report more relevant financial numbers and follow artificial smoothing during the financial crisis while the countries in cluster 1 are to some conflicting.