美國銀行業於2020年遭逢新冠疫情肆虐，對其整體營運造成衝擊。本研究欲探討銀行經理人在此疫情期間的盈餘管理行為。本研究之實證研究結果發現，在新冠疫情期間，銀行經理人利用新冠疫情重大災害為由，提列大量的裁決性備抵壞帳。然而，其獲利能力和股票表現卻在隨後年度顯著提高。本研究推測銀行經理人在新冠疫情期間傾向使用洗大澡式的盈餘管理行為，提列超過疫情真實經濟後果之裁決性備抵壞帳。由於經理人可將損失歸咎於不可抗力的災害，因此超額提列裁決性備抵壞帳並不會讓經理人受到董事會及股東的究責，反而獲利能力在隔年度可因裁決性備抵壞帳迴轉而迅速增長，連帶對股票表現帶來正面影響。本研究透過新冠疫情此一外生事件來探討銀行業經理人之盈餘管理行為，解決了過去文獻在探討盈餘管理行為時所困擾的內生性問題，補充了過去文獻之不足。

In 2020, the U.S. banking industry was hit by COVID-19, which had an impact on its overall operations. This study intends to explore the bank managers' earnings management behavior during COVID-19. The empirical study results show that bank managers used COVID-19 a basis to report substantial discretionary loan loss provisions (DLLP). However, their profitability and stock performance have increased significantly in the subsequent year. This study speculates that bank managers opted to use big bath accounting during COVID-19 and reported DLLP that exceeded the real economic consequences of COVID-19. Since the bank managers could attribute bank losses to COVID-19, any excesses recognized as DLLP would not make bank managers accountable to the board and shareholders. However, their profitability increased quickly in 2021 due to the reversal of expenses for DLLP, which in turn had a positive impact on stock performance. This study explores the bank managers' earnings management behavior with COVID-19 as an external influence, thus solving the endogenous problem that plagued previous literatures on earnings management behavior and complements the insufficiency of the past literatures.

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