---
title: "Detecting earnings management beyond accrual models"
description: "Earnings management is a mainstay of the finance and accounting journals, still measured mostly with accrual regressions such as the modified Jones model. Only 4 of 156 recent papers on it carry a machine-learning or text keyword. Do learned models, including language models reading the filings, flag manipulation that accrual models miss?"
url: https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/detecting-earnings-management-beyond-accruals
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/detecting-earnings-management-beyond-accruals.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "Detecting earnings management beyond accrual models: Earnings management is a mainstay of the finance and accounting journals, still measured mostly with accrual regressions such as the modified Jones model."
date: "2026-10-23"
updated: "2026-10-23"
status: "seed"
tags: ["accounting", "finance", "ai"]
keywords: ["earnings management", "accrual-based earnings management", "real earnings management"]
---

# Detecting earnings management beyond accrual models

Earnings management is a mainstay of the finance and accounting journals, still measured mostly with accrual regressions such as the modified Jones model. Only 4 of 156 recent papers on it carry a machine-learning or text keyword. Do learned models, including language models reading the filings, flag manipulation that accrual models miss?

## What prompted this

Since October 2025, 156 papers carry an earnings-management or accrual keyword (88 in finance journals, 47 in accounting). Only 4 of them also carry a machine-learning, deep-learning, language-model, text or neural-network keyword. Accrual models such as the modified Jones model, on the [equation ranking](/rankings/equations)'s list, remain the standard measure.

## Questions

- Against known cases (restatements, enforcement actions), do learned models built on raw financial statements and filing text beat accrual residuals?
- Do the measures disagree on which firms manage earnings, and do published results depend on the measure used?
- Can a language model explain why it flags a firm, in terms an auditor could check?

## Data that could help

Restatements and enforcement actions (Audit Analytics, SEC releases), financial statements (Compustat or CSMAR) and filing text (SEC EDGAR).

## Next step

Train a gradient-boosting model on raw accounting items to predict restatements, and compare its ranking of firms with modified-Jones residuals.

## Related research activity

*The keywords this note follows, in the tracked finance, accounting, economics, management, operations research and AI journals as of 2026-10-26*

| Keyword | Papers, last 30 days | Rank | Papers per month, Oct 23 – Oct 26* | Papers, last 36 months |
|---|---:|---:|---|---:|
| earnings management | 6 | #306 | 7, 12, 10, 9, 6, 9, 11, 9, 9, 13, 6, 6, 11, 10, 11, 8, 9, 16, 10, 11, 12, 12, 10, 9, 8, 7, 11, 8, 8, 8, 9, 7, 13, 9, 8, 9, 6 | 341 |
| accrual-based earnings management | 1 | #2881 | 0, 2, 1, 3, 3, 2, 4, 0, 3, 1, 1, 0, 4, 1, 3, 2, 3, 4, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 3, 1, 1, 2, 2, 1, 5, 2, 1, 1, 1 | 64 |
| real earnings management | 4 | #525 | 1, 4, 0, 4, 4, 3, 4, 1, 3, 4, 1, 2, 4, 2, 5, 3, 4, 3, 1, 1, 3, 1, 4, 4, 2, 2, 1, 1, 2, 4, 4, 4, 3, 3, 2, 4, 2 | 98 |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Detecting earnings management beyond accrual models. Journal Research Rankings. Retrieved October 23, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/detecting-earnings-management-beyond-accruals

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-ideas-detecting-earnings-management-beyond-accruals,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Detecting earnings management beyond accrual models},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/detecting-earnings-management-beyond-accruals}},
  urldate = {2026-10-23},
  note = {Journal Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).