In this paper, I draw parallels between the literatures on the effects of law on the financial development of countries and on the effects of accounting standards on financial reporting outcomes. My central thesis is that these literatures are complementary in terms of what they have to say...

We revisit evidence whether incentives or IFRS drive earnings quality changes, analyzing a large sample of German firms in the period from 1998 to 2008. Consistent with previous studies we find that voluntary and mandatory adopters differ distinctively in terms of essential firm characteristics...

Balance sheet figures must be reliable and need not necessarily be value relevant. In order to protect the company's creditors, and to safeguard the investing public against the possibility of earnings management, intangible assets should only be recognized when the most stringent of standards...

I find that goodwill write-offs under Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 142 (SFAS 142) are associated with future expected cash flows as mandated by the standard. However, there are indications that goodwill write-offs lag behind the economic impairment of goodwill. Additional...

This paper addresses the question whether adoption of IFRS-standards is associated with lower earnings management. Ball et al. (2003) argue that adopting high-quality standards might be a necessary condition for high quality information, but not necessarily a sufficient one. In Germany, a...

We conduct two experiments with experienced accountants to investigate how fair value accounting affects managers' real economic decisions. In Experiment 1, we find that participants are more likely to make sub-optimal decisions (e.g., forgo economically sound hedging opportunities) when...

We revisit evidence whether incentives or IFRS drive earnings quality changes, analyzing a large sample of German firms in the period from 1998 to 2008. Consistent with previous studies we find that voluntary and mandatory adopters differ distinctively in terms of essential firm characteristics...

The Financial Reporting Policy Committee of the Financial Accounting and Reporting Section of the American Accounting Association responded to the SEC's July 13, 2007 proposal to accept financial statements prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) from...

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a call for comment on a proposal to adopt a Roadmap for potential use of international financial reporting standards (IFRS) by U.S. Companies. We comment on five key issues raised by the SEC proposal. First, we propose that the need for a...

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently issued a call for comment on a proposal to accept financial statements prepared in accordance with international financial reporting standards (IFRS) without reconciliation to U.S. GAAP. Accounting researchers have attempted to assess the...