After considerable discussion and some controversy the Employers' Accounting for Defined Benefit Pension and Other Post-Retirement Plans Statement of Financial Accounting Standard (SFAS) 158 was implemented in 2006. An important goal of this standard was to enhance financial reporting...

SFAS 158 mandated balance sheet disclosure of the funded status of firms' Defined Benefit Pension Plan using the projected benefit Obligation (PBO) to estimate the pension liability. SFAS 158 caused a market phenomenon because the use of the PBO engendered dramatically higher estimates of...