Intangibles are ideas or knowledge about the natural (physical and biological) and socio-cultural worlds that enable people to better accomplish their goals, both in primitive societies and in modern economies. Intangibles include basic research and technology improvements as well as knowledge...

This paper identifies segment characteristics that made industry segment reporting more useful in equity valuation. Those characteristics are the difference in segments' growth potential, the relative size of segments, and the magnitude of correlation in segment earnings. Usefulness is measured...

We critically evaluate Sprouse (1966 Journal of Accountancy), which prodded FASB towards a balance sheet approach. We highlight 3 errors in this article. First, Sprouse confuses necessary and sufficient conditions by arguing that good accounting systems must satisfy the balance sheet equation....

We develop the hypothesis that culturally evolved accounting principles will be ultimately explained by their consilience with how the human brain has evolved biologically to evaluate social and economic exchange. We provide background on the structure and evolution of the brain, the measurement...

We critically evaluate Sprouse's 1966 Journal of Accountancy article, which prodded the FASB towards a balance-sheet approach. We highlight three errors in this article. First, Sprouse confuses necessary and sufficient conditions by arguing that good accounting systems must satisfy the...

This study investigates (a) why some IPO firms proactively disclose internal control weaknesses (ICWs) and remediation progress in their prospectuses before going public, despite being exempt from the requirements of Sections 302 and 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act at the time of IPO, and (b) the...

We study non-officer directors' influence on the accounting conservatism of U.S. public firms. Between 1986 and 2002, all 50 U.S. states enacted laws that limited non-officer directors' litigation risk without changing officer directors' litigation risk. We find that conditional conservatism...

We develop new distribution discontinuity tests conditional on multiple explanatory variables for analyzing meet-or-just-beat behavior around benchmarks. These tests combine Burgstahler and Dichev's (1997) meet-or-just-beat intuition with a flexible statistical model that addresses important...

Large net loan charge-offs are frequently associated with large decreases in nonperforming loans and large increases in loan loss provisions, inducing a V-shaped relation between loan loss provisions and nonperforming loan changes. Failure to model the asymmetry attributable to net loan...

Sales decreases affect earnings more than sales increases because of cost stickiness. We hypothesize that this correlated omitted variable constitutes a confounding effect in standard asymmetric timeliness models. Adding sales change direction to the Basu (1997) and Ball et al. (2013b) models...