Standard setters have sought a conceptual framework to guide development of a consistent set of accounting standards. However, the framework has two key weaknesses. First, it is very broad, lacks a measurement framework, and can be used ex post to justify a wide range of actual accounting...

Certification of financial reports is tightly regulated with the intent to ensure the quality of this service. In order to place this market within a larger perspective, Part I of this paper presents archival data on certification activity in the economy. The finding of widespread availability...

Independence (in fact as well as in appearance) is widely thought to be necessary for the quality of audits, and audit quality is often equated with independence. Private incentives to demand (and supply) independent certification of financial statements are thought to be insufficient, thus the...

To explore how speculative trading influences prices in financial markets, we conduct a laboratory market experiment with speculating investors (who do not collect dividends and trade only for capital gains) and dividend-collecting investors. Moreover, we operate markets at two different...

Forming beliefs or expectations about others' behavior is fundamental to strategy, as it co-determines the outcomes of interactions in and across organizations. In the game theoretic conception of rationality, agents reason iteratively about each other to form expectations about behavior....

Financial reports make significant contributions to corporate governance, capital markets, government, and the economy. US approach to financial reporting has led the way for the rest of the world, but it needs rethinking now. Over the past seven decades, a social norms based approach to...

In the neoclassical model of the firm, value surplus of the firm is assumed to accrue to its owner. Contract model suggests a distribution of the surplus among various agents depending on the imperfections of the markets in which they transact with the firm. If the share of the surplus to an...

Opportunity cost is a central concept in decision making. It is difficult to measure because it is the value associated with opportunities foregone. In this paper, we characterize three time-based dimensions of resources to help understand and estimate opportunity costs. These dimensions capture...

Financial reporting environment of the world is dominated today by a top down push for uniform financial reporting standards. The advantages of uniformity and monopoly standards have been well-publicized compared to their disadvantages. No language, accounting included, can flourish under the...