Resumen de Accounting informs investors and earnings management is rife: : two questionable beliefs

Ray Ball

• This short essay addresses the inordinate amount of attention given in the literature to two seemingly widely-held but questionable beliefs: that a major role of financial reporting is providing new information for equity investors, and that "earnings management" is rampant. In this essay, I discuss these beliefs, indicate why I consider them "most incorrect," and offer conjectures on why they have not been corrected.