Deflating all variables by a common scalar removes the impact of asset growth on the dependent variable and, as noted by FWY (2003b), implies that Eq(12) tells us about the predictive power of accruals for future profits rather than future profitability. The investment hypothesis implies that the slope on accruals in this regression should be positive, even though accruals are negatively related to profitability in Eq. (11).In contrast, the measurement error and product market hypotheses imply the slope will be negative regardless of whether TAt or TAt+1 is used to scale the dependent variable.