Economic consequences of the Choice of Sequencing of Accounting and Real Earnings Management.

We predict firms' equilibrium mix of accounting and real earnings management choices. Among other results, our analysis predicts that firms will employ both real and accounting earnings management if the variance in the distribution of firms' real earnings is sufficiently low, but they will employ only accounting earnings management if the variance of the distribution of firms' real earnings is sufficiently high. We also obtain a variety of other results regarding the equilibrium form of earnings management firms undertake.