We provide evidence that accruals quality in the U.S. has generally improved since 2000, following a decade of decline during the 1990s. Our results indicate that both the initial decline in accruals quality and the subsequent reversal can be explained by an inverse relation with operating cash flow volatility. Moreover, even though patterns of cash flow volatility and accruals quality vary in different regions of the world and relative to the U.S., we find evidence of an inverse relation between accruals quality and cash flow volatility globally. We corroborate our main results in a battery of additional tests, which also indicate that our results are not attributable to other explanations. Overall, our evidence challenges conventional wisdom and suggests that concerns about a sustained decline in accruals quality over time are unwarranted.

我们提供的证据表明，美国应计项目质量自 2000 年以来普遍有所改善，经历了 90 年代十年的下降。我们的结果表明，应计质量的最初下降和随后的逆转都可以通过与经营现金流波动性的反比关系来解释。此外，尽管现金流波动和应计质量的模式在世界不同地区以及相对于美国有所不同，但我们发现全球范围内应计质量与现金流波动之间存在反比关系的证据。我们通过一系列附加测试证实了我们的主要结果，这也表明我们的结果不能归因于其他解释。总体而言，我们的证据挑战了传统观点，并表明对应计质量随时间持续下降的担忧是没有根据的。