The extent of the practice of earnings management in Libyan insurance companies (a comparative applied study)

Abstract

The objectives of the study are to measure the Earnings Management practices in the Libyan Insurance Companies based on measurement models related to the activity of these companies, and identify the variation of measurement results between the different measurement models. A secondary data of financial statement is collected from reports of the firms. Accruals-based models are applied on three companies. The data is analyzed using the software Statistical Package for the Social Sciences SPSS. The results emphasized that companies have not exercised Earnings Management in the Libyan Insurance companies. Furthermore, the results revealed that models have significant differences when measuring the Earnings Management practices.