Accounting practices differ across geographic and political boundaries, across sectors of the economy within these boundaries, and across types of organizations. Globalization exerts a homogenizing force across the political and jurisdictional boundaries with mixed consequences. Development of...

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a call for comment on a proposal to adopt a Roadmap for potential use of international financial reporting standards (IFRS) by U.S. Companies. We comment on five key issues raised by the SEC proposal. First, we propose that the need for a...

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently issued a call for comment on a proposal to accept financial statements prepared in accordance with international financial reporting standards (IFRS) without reconciliation to U.S. GAAP. Accounting researchers have attempted to assess the...

Design of contracts that define firms, and their accounting systems depends on the conditions in the firm's factor and product markets. We examine the fundamental difficulty of defining and developing "uniform" accounting for diverse economic environments across countries and compare the...

This paper discusses arguments for and against introducing competition into the accounting standard-setting process in the U.S. by allowing individual corporations to issue financial reports prepared in accordance with either FASB or IASB rules. The paper examines several arguments supporting...

The Canadian Accounting Standards Board (AcSB) issued an exposure draft on a proposal to adopt a separate 'Made in Canada' GAAP for private enterprises. This new GAAP is justified as being consistent with the current FASB/IASB conceptual framework, but as being responsive to the different...

The FASB and the IASB recently issued a joint discussion paper entitled, Preliminary Views on Revenue Recognition in Contracts with Customers. The Boards requested comments on whether their proposed model for revenue recognition would improve the usefulness of the financial statement information...

The accounting standardization project, kicked off by the passage of U.S. securities laws in the 1930s, has steadily gained momentum over seven decades. Today, written standards dominate accounting thought, practice, regulation, instruction, even research. Generally accepted accounting...

The remarks in this paper consist of two parts. The first part concerns the linkages established in the three excellent papers among accounting, corporate governance, and market discipline. The second part discusses the possible uses and abuses of market discipline to define and develop...

This study considers accounting in the new information economy. The basic framework of accounting for firms reflects a set of contracts and it helps define, implement and enforce these contracts. This framework is stable, and unlikely to change soon. However, the new information technology has...