This study argues that the managerial choice of earnings management strategy could be contingent upon a firm’s information asymmetry and such a strategy may affect the firm’s earnings predictability. Measuring information asymmetry by earnings predictability based on the subsequent industry-adjusted dispersion in analysts’ forecasts and employing a quantile regression to analyze 28,383 US firm-year observations from 1988 to 2014, this study reports that the effect of earnings management strategies on earnings predictability is nonuniform. Specifically, the amount of absolute discretionary accruals is negatively (positively) related to the subsequent industry-adjusted dispersion in the low (high) quantiles of analysts’ forecasts. These results support the hypothesis that a firm could implement earnings management strategies according to the degree of information asymmetry between the firm’s management and corporate outsiders.

JEL Classification: G12, G32

这项研究认为，盈余管理策略的管理选择可能取决于企业的信息不对称性，并且这种策略可能会影响企业的盈余可预测性。基于分析师预测中随后的行业调整后的分散度，通过收益可预测性来衡量信息不对称性，并采用分位数回归分析1988年至2014年美国28,383家公司年观察结果，该研究报告指出，收益管理策略对收益可预测性的影响是不均匀 具体而言，绝对酌情应计金额与分析师在预测的低（高）分位数中随后进行的行业调整后的分散性成负（正）相关。

JEL分类：G12，G32