Income smoothing in accounting and business literature prior to 1954

The origin of income smoothing in literature has been attributed to different authors in recent years. However, the attributions have been made based on research using a simple analysis of the term income smoothing . This study considers the modern concept of income smoothing rather than simply the term itself. Using this approach, income smoothing is either explicitly or implicitly recognized and discussed in literature long before the aforementioned authors. A lack of awareness has been the primary reason for modern income smoothing research overlooking the earlier literature on the subject. This awareness can be ascribed to weak citation analysis. Therefore, researchers should be more cautious in how they use citation analysis