Financial accounting standards in the U.S. are developed by private standard setting organizations (SSOs) that operate under the oversight of a government agency. The primary accounting SSO (FASB) has been criticized for writing too many standards (standards overload), the complexity of its...

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

Failures in corporate governance of many major US corporations in 2002 suggest that it may be useful to fundamentally rethink the structure of institutions of accounting, auditing, corporate governance and executive compensation. Replacement of the system of authoritative standards by a...

Attempts to improve financial reporting by adding clarity to its rules and standards through issuance of interpretations and guidance also serve to furnish a better roadmap for evasion through financial engineering. Thus, paradoxically, regulation of financial reporting becomes a victim of its...

Standard setters and most academics maintain that accounting standards ought to rest on a set of guiding principles stated explicitly in a “conceptual framework.” The FASB and IASB are currently involved in a project to refine conceptual framework documents developed earlier. At this point,...

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 benefits of top down financial reporting regulation over the past eight decades are less obvious than its failures to achieve the purported goals. Perhaps it is time to give a chance to an alternative approach of regulatory competition

It is often claimed that statistical studies of covariation between financial and stock market data can help set better financial reporting policy. Such covariation, even when it can be estimated, tells us little about which financial reports help make better financial decisions. A case in...