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Comparing the Quality of Accruals for Alternative Summary Performance Measures in the Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) Industry

This study examines Funds from Operations (FFO), a non-GAAP summary performance measure used extensively by the Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) industry, by comparing the quality of accruals in FFO and in net income. Accrual quality is empirically evaluated from regressions relating accruals to past, present, future cash flows and changes in revenue, with larger residuals implying lower accrual quality. Results show that the accruals component of FFO is of higher quality than the accruals component of net income. The study then considers how the individual accrual items excluded from FFO, but included in net income contribute to the accrual quality differences of the two measures. I show that all these accrual items (including depreciation and some non-recurring accruals) are of low quality and are insignificant in predicting future cash flows. Since accounting depreciation is supposed to help match revenue with expenses, it is surprising to find that depreciation accruals are of low quality for the REIT industry. Further analysis on depreciation shows that the low quality of depreciation accruals for REIT firms is due to estimation errors and managerial manipulation and, to some extent, extreme changes in market inflation.