Goodwill Impairment as a Tool for Earnings Management

Executive summary This research examines whether or not goodwill impairments are being used by Dutch listed firms to manipulate earnings. Two different regression models are used for this purpose which include firm-specific factors as well as proxies for big bath accounting, income smoothing and a factor for measuring the recognition of higher impairments around the time of a CEO change. The results show that the method (model) chosen to measure the impairment decision influences the generated results, and that overall no strong evidence is found which indicates that goodwill impairments are indeed being used to manipulate earnings.

• View at Worldcat

Free Full Text ( Final Version , 193kb )