Contents 1 Introduction 1��1 Motivations of corporate earnings management 1��2 The determinants of corporate earnings management 1��3 Objectives of the study 1��4 Structure of the study 2 Literature review of corporate earnings management 2��1 Accounting standards and earnings management 2��2 Corporate governance and earnings management 2��3 Legal protection and earnings management 2��4 Summary and suggestions 3 How do regulatory scrutiny�� accounting standards and insiders�� incentives affect earnings management? Evidence from China 3��1 Introduction 3��2 Background issues and hypotheses 3��3 Variables 3��4 Sample selection and data 3��5 Regression results 3��6 Conclusions 4 Regional legal protection and earnings management�� Evidence from China 4��1 Introduction 4��2 Literature review�� legal environment index and hypothesis 4��3 Variables 4��4 Sample selection and data 4��5 Regression results 4��6 Conclusions 5 Corporate governance�� investor protection and earnings ��management�� New international evidence 5��1 Introduction 5��2 Measures of earnings management 5��3 Proxies for investor protection and corporate governance 5��4 Sample selection and data 5��5 Empirical results 5��6 Conclusions 6 Conclusions and implications Reference