We examine the effect of Audit Committee (AC) quality on auditor conservatism from two perspectives that may be held by the auditors. The first perspective is that enhanced AC quality lowers audit risk, which allows auditors to be less aggressive when insisting on recording adjusting entries –...

Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 130 requires companies to report comprehensive income in a primary financial statement, but allows its presentation in either a statement of comprehensive income or a statement of stockholders' equity. In an experiment, we examine whether and how...

One objection to fair value accounting for liabilities is that changes in a company’s credit risk are recognized as gains or losses in a manner that is counterintuitive to the way gains and losses are typically interpreted (Lipe 2002). Specifically, when a company’s credit risk increases...

The rising prominence of fair values and other estimates (FVOEs) to financial reporting increases their significance to the audit. Based on inspections that report numerous deficiencies, the PCAOB is concerned that auditors are not sufficiently prepared for the challenges faced in evaluating...

Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 130 requires companies to report comprehensive income in a primary financial statement, but allows its presentation in either a statement of comprehensive income or a statement of stockholders' equity. In an experiment, we examine whether and how...

This paper reports results from an experiment which provide evidence on how certain provisions of current and revised segment reporting standards affect financial analysts? judgments. Specifically, we examine the effect of two alternative approaches to segment definition: segments defined by...