2026-09-20T15:41:02Zhttps://dspace.mit.edu/server/oai/requestoai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/372512022-01-13T07:54:52Zcom_1721.1_7582com_1721.1_7581col_1721.1_131022
S.P. Kothari.
Liu, Michelle M
Sloan School of Management.
Sloan School of Management
2007-04-20T15:56:55Z
2007-04-20T15:56:55Z
2006
2006
http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/37251
85835990
Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2006.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 72-75).
This paper explores how accruals capture managerial operating decisions that evolve over a firm's life cycle. I argue that growing firms face different operating environments and have fundamentally different accruals properties than those of mature and declining firms. I provide evidence that accruals vary with changes in a firm's operating environment over its life cycle. I show in one example that by ignoring life cycle fundamentals, previous empirical methods would likely misclassify this variation in accruals as reflecting systematic differences in a firm's "accounting quality". I suggest empirical techniques to mitigate incorrect inferences about accounting quality and to better understand how operating decisions affect accruals.
by Michelle M. Liu.
Ph.D.
104 leaves
eng
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.
http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582
Sloan School of Management.
Accruals and managerial operating decisions over the firm life cycle
Thesis
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