Earnings Pressure and Earnings Management: Analysis Based on a Quasi-natural Experiment from China

Since analysts play an important role in corporate governance, this paper aims to examine the impact of earnings pressure from analysts on corporate earnings management. To verify the relationship of earnings pressure and earnings management, this paper selected the listed companies in China as a sample, and chose the deregulation of short selling mechanism to make conclusion persuasive. This paper shows that the greater earnings pressure perceived by managers, the possibility and degree of corporate earnings management increase. When the Short Selling was deregulated, earnings management can be significantly inhibited due to the decrease of earnings pressure. In addition, the influence of earnings pressure on earnings management is more significant in non-state-owned enterprises, and audit quality doesn’t affect the relationship.