Based on extant literature, we review the positive theory of GAAP. The theory predicts that GAAP's principal focus is on control (performance measurement and stewardship) and that verifiability and conservatism are critical features of a GAAP shaped by market forces. We recognize the advantage...

We provide an overview of the empirical literature on the politics of accounting standard-setting, focusing on the US Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). Although it is clear from casual observation that politics sometimes plays a first-order role in the determination of accounting...

In this commentary I offer some thoughts on the possibilities for accounting research that uses the Japanese setting. I argue that the uniqueness of the Japanese setting offers many opportunities for researchers, and hope that we can encourage more researchers to take advantage of this setting...

We present a synthesis of academic research on corporate payout policy grounded in the pioneering contributions of Lintner (1956) and Miller and Modigliani (1961). We conclude that a simple asymmetric information framework that emphasizes the need to distribute FCF and that embeds agency costs...