Gerenciamento de Resultados em Bancos: Indícios relacionados à aversão a divulgação de prejuízos

Abstract

Objective: To analyze if there are indications that small and large Brazilian banks used earnings management to avoid the disclosure of losses from 2008 to 2015. Background: The discussion of earnings management in the banking sector to avoid the disclosure of losses, in this paper, was based on the studies by Burgstahler and Dichev (1997), Shen and Chih (2005), Goulart (2007) and Bornemann et al. (2012). Method: The institutions surveyed were commercial banks, multiple banks with commercial portfolios and savings banks. The data included balance sheets of June and December of each year of the analysis period, and were extracted from the website of the Central Bank of Brazil. The methodology employed was the frequency analysis with histograms. Results: The results showed indication of earnings management to prevent the disclosure of losses in small banks in both semesters of the analyzed period. With regard to large banks, however, the results showed no indication of earnings management to prevent disclosing losses. Contributions: The research findings contribute to the discussion about earnings management in the Brazilian banking sector by providing evidences, which so far are scarce, on whether or not banks are using this strategy to avoid the disclosure of losses. In addition, they provide an alert to the users of accounting information regarding the perception of risk in banks, especially in the small ones, since these can minimize the disclosure of losses with the strategy of earnings management.