A Multidimensional Analysis of the Relationship between Earnings Management and Financial Statement Reporting Quality among Deposit Money Banks in Nigeria

This study examined the relationship between earnings management and financial statement reporting quality among Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) in Nigeria over the period 1994–2024. Specifically, it examined the relationship between discretionary accruals and accrual quality; loan loss provisions and accounting conservatism; earnings smoothing and earnings persistence; real earnings management and earnings predictability; discretionary loan loss provisions and transparency and disclosure; and income-increasing/decreasing accruals and the value relevance of financial statements. Anchored on agency theory, the study adopted an ex-post facto research design and employed panel least squares regression using a balanced panel of 17 purposively selected DMBs, comprising 527 bank-year observations. Panel unit-root tests indicated that the study variables were stationary, while the Kao residual cointegration test indicated a long-run relationship among the variables. The findings revealed a statistically significant positive relationship between discretionary accruals and accrual quality (p = 0.0081), a statistically significant negative relationship between loan loss provisions and accounting conservatism (p = 0.0130), and a statistically significant negative relationship between income-increasing/decreasing accruals and the value relevance of financial statements (p = 0.0364). However, no statistically significant relationship was found between earnings smoothing and earnings persistence (p = 0.6375), real earnings management and earnings predictability (p = 0.1083), or discretionary loan loss provisions and transparency and disclosure (p = 0.2193). The study concludes that the relationship between earnings management and financial statement reporting quality varies across the six dimensions examined among Nigerian DMBs. It recommends strengthened regulatory monitoring of discretionary accruals and loan loss provisioning, improved internal controls, enhanced board and audit committee oversight, and more transparent disclosure of accounting estimates to mitigate opportunistic earnings management and strengthen financial statement reporting quality in the Nigerian banking sector.