Abstract: Based on A-Share companies, this paper examines the impacts of economic policy uncertainty (hereafter as EPU) on the timeliness and credibility of management earnings forecasts (hereafter as MEFs).The results indicate that when management can have discretion on the timing of MEFs, they tend to postpone the timing of MEFs when EPU is higher. Therefore, EPU has no significant impact on the accuracy of MEFs in that case. Otherwise, the accuracy of MEFs is negatively associated with EPU. Further analysis shows that the optimistic bias of MEFs is the path that EPU affects the accuracy of MEFs. What’s more, the impacts of EPU on the accuracy of MEFs are most profound for companies whose performance is of low predictability. But the forecasting ability of management has no significant impact on the relationship between EPU and the accuracy of MEFs. Our results indicate that regulators should consider of giving companies more choices and urging management to disclose MEFs according to macro-economic factors and firm fundamentals.

Key words: timeliness of MEFs, accuracy of MEFs, management discretion, economic policy uncertainty, path analysis