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