Analyst attention and earning management

Under the continuous improvement of the governance environment, will the management really reduce earnings management? We selected Chinese A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2019 as the research samples. This paper explores the relationship between analyst attention and earnings management from the perspective of long-term equilibrium relationship. The empirical results show that when security analysts pay more attention to listed companies, enterprise managers will reduce the accrual earnings management. When the accrual earnings management loses its manipulable space under the analyst attention, the enterprise managers will manipulate profits through the way of real earnings management. This paper reveals the evolution mechanism between accrual earnings management and real earnings management under the influence of analysts' attention, which helps shareholders and potential investors identify the earnings management methods that managers may use.