EVA is a variant of residual income marketed by Stern Stewart amp; Co., a New York consulting firm, with the purpose of promoting value-maximising behaviour in corporate managers. This paper reviews the EVA system in the light of this purpose. First, it outlines the rationale for the use of...

Amendment of IAS 39 by the IASB in 2008 provided an option to reclassify investments from fair value to historical cost. Whereas this option was available to all firms, it was particularly relevant to banks. We predict that “too important to fail” (TITF) banks took less advantage of this...

Existing empirical evidence suggests that residual income valuation models based on historical cost accounting considerably underestimate equity values. One possible explanation is the use of historical cost accounting under inflationary conditions. In this paper, we use a residual income...

The present paper reviews the research evidence on the impact of changes in pension accounting methods on pension provision. We show that decisions to freeze, terminate or convert defined benefit (DB) plans have been driven primarily by a desire to limit contributions, though financial reporting...

This study addresses two related research questions concerning a new requirement in the United Kingdom that auditors disclose the materiality thresholds they apply when conducting the audit of listed companies. First, are cross-sectional differences in materiality thresholds associated with...

This paper shows how the outputs of the accounting measurement process can be translated into terms that can be used in economic decisions. We introduce the notion of Term Structure of Capital Values (TSCV), uniquely associated to a Term Structure of Interest Rates (TSIR). We show that the state...

Previous studies of analysts' valuation methods show that sell-side analysts often rely on multiples-based relative valuation methods in deriving target price forecasts, predominantly earnings-based multiples. However, little is known about how analysts actually arrive at the earnings multiples...

We examine whether the use of fair value measurement (FVM) for bank assets reduces information asymmetry among equity investors (bid–ask spread) and how this is affected by the recognition of own credit risk gains and losses (OCR). Our findings show that FVM of assets is associated with...

The introduction of a new accounting standard for financial instruments has raised a number of issues related to the application of fair value principles. This paper discusses some of these issues which are generally related to the fact that fair values are not always easily defined or readily...

This study addresses whether asset securitizations are really asset sales or a form of secured borrowing, by estimating cross-sectional equity valuation regressions to assess whether the stock market treats securitized assets and liabilities held by a special purpose entity (SPE) as assets and...