Table 2 Summary of study variables... | Emerald Publishing

Table 2

Summary of study variables

Variable	Definition	Measure
Dependent variable
AEM	Accrual-based earnings management	Discretionary accruals (DA) (Based on the modified Jones model (1995))
REM	Real earnings management	the total of abnormal operating cash flow and abnormal discretionary spending, multiplied by (−1)
EM	Total earnings management	AEM + REM
Independent variable
COVID	COVID-19 outbreak	Binary variable taking the value of 1 if the observation is the first or the second half of 2020, otherwise 0
Control variables
ROA	The ratio of return on assets	Net income per Total assets
MTB	The ratio of market-to-book	Market capitalization per net book value
LEV	The ratio of financial leverage	Total debt per total assets
AUD	Audit quality	A binary variable taking the value of 1 if the firm is audited by a big-4 firm, otherwise 0
BLOC	Ownership concentration	5% or more of capital held by blockholders per total capital
SIZE	Firm size	Natural logarithm of total assets

Variable	Definition	Measure
Dependent variable
AEM	Accrual-based earnings management	Discretionary accruals (DA)(Based on the modified Jones model (1995))
REM	Real earnings management	the total of abnormal operating cash flow and abnormal discretionary spending, multiplied by (−1)
EM	Total earnings management	AEM + REM
Independent variable
COVID	COVID-19 outbreak	Binary variable taking the value of 1 if the observation is the first or the second half of 2020, otherwise 0
Control variables
ROA	The ratio of return on assets	Net income per Total assets
MTB	The ratio of market-to-book	Market capitalization per net book value
LEV	The ratio of financial leverage	Total debt per total assets
AUD	Audit quality	A binary variable taking the value of 1 if the firm is audited by a big-4 firm, otherwise 0
BLOC	Ownership concentration	5% or more of capital held by blockholders per total capital
SIZE	Firm size	Natural logarithm of total assets

Source(s): Authors own work