This study examines whether real earnings smoothing influences equity and credit investors’ perceptions of risk. Using a large sample of US public firms, we find that real earnings smoothing is negatively associated with option-implied volatility, suggesting that real earnings smoothing lowers equity investors’ perceived risk. We also find that real earnings smoothing is negatively associated with credit default swap spread, implying that real earnings smoothing lowers credit investors’ perceived risk. Our results are robust to multiple sensitivity analyses and to various tests used to address potential endogeneity. Moreover, the effect of real earnings smoothing is greater than that of accrual-based smoothing, suggesting that real earnings smoothing is more difficult for investors to detect and unravel. Overall, our study documents a new factor that influences both equity and credit investors’ ex-ante perceptions of risk.

中文翻译：

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实际收益平滑是否会降低投资者的感知风险？

本研究检验了实际收益平滑是否会影响股票和信贷投资者的风险认知。使用美国上市公司的大量样本，我们发现实际收益平滑与期权隐含波动率负相关，这表明实际收益平滑降低了股票投资者的感知风险。我们还发现，实际收益平滑与信用违约掉期利差呈负相关，这意味着实际收益平滑降低了信贷投资者的感知风险。我们的结果对多重敏感性分析和用于解决潜在内生性的各种测试都是稳健的。此外，实际收益平滑的效果大于应计平滑的效果，这表明实际收益平滑对于投资者来说更难以发现和解开。全面的，事前对风险的认知。