Die Messung von "Earnings"-Qualität

This paper presents the commonly used measures for earnings quality. It critically analyzes the measures within a theoretical framework and presents empirical results for Austrian listed corporations over a period of ten years. The analysis shows strengths and weaknesses of the measures, their conceptual relationship and empirical association. The knowledge of associations is also important to judge the robustness of empirical results based on a single aggregate earnings quality measure. The paper contributes to the understanding of opportunities and potential weaknesses of empirical research on earnings quality, and shows avenues for further research. © Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien, Austria 2007.