Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between market structure, competition and pricing in the UK accounting services market. This association is important because mergers amongst the leading firms and the collapse of Arthur Andersen have reduced the number of...

The internal rate of return (IRR) is a widely used benchmark for assessing the reliability of the accounting rate of return (ROA) as a measure of economic profitability. We turn this reasoning process on its head by demonstrating that a suitable (weighted average) aggregation of ROAs better...

This paper summarizes changes that have taken place in banking, the attendant financial innovations, and the challenges these innovations pose for accounting standard setters and regulators. We focus on asset securitizations and the difficulties in accounting for such transactions, in particular...

We examine the costs and benefits of proactive financial reporting enforcement by the UK Financial Reporting Review Panel. Enforcement scrutiny is selective and varies by sector and over time, yet can be anticipated by auditors and companies. We find evidence that increased enforcement intensity...