This essay is based on a keynote speech at the 2014 Journal of International Accounting Research (JIAR) Conference. That talk was built upon a 2009 American Accounting Association (AAA) annual meeting panel presentation titled “Is there any scientific legitimacy to what we teach in Accounting...

Sivakumar and Waymire examine differences in the properties of US railroads' reported earnings before and after concurrent changes in accounting rules and rate regulations. Although the accounting rules were intended to combat income smoothing, Sivakumar and Waymire find little evidence that...

We analyze p-values in empirical papers published in the “top three” accounting journals in 2011. We estimate average Type I error and Type II error rates to be 11% and 22% respectively. The p-value distribution is strongly concentrated near zero and the frequencies of p-values just below...

We study changes in financial reporting around economic crises from a historical perspective through the lens of punctuated equilibrium evolution. Historical evidence and contemporary economic analyses indicate that corporate financial reporting plays a minor role in precipitating economic...

This essay is based on a presentation at the American Accounting Association Strategy Retreat in May 2011 on the assertion ‘‘Accounting research as of 2011 is stagnant and lacking in significant innovation that introduces fresh ideas and insights into our scholarly discipline.’’ It poses...