Are earnings announced early of higher quality?

This study examines whether the timing of annual earnings announcements is related to how promptly earnings incorporate value-relevant information (timeliness in recognition), the extent to which earnings are managed (income smoothing) and the extent to which earnings are realized into operating cash flow (accruals quality). Based on Trueman (1990), we hypothesize that early announcers will have higher quality earnings. Our results, however, do not support these hypotheses. We find, instead, that late announcers have higher quality earnings and that earnings of late announcers recognize bad news on a more timelier basis than do earnings of early announcers.