'Fair value' is currently the central topic of debate in the development of accounting standards. While it has now been defined to mean an exit price in US GAAP, the IASB is still considering its own definition, and some commentators are arguing for versions of entry price, or for differing...

The accounting for life insurance contracts purchased by third parties changed dramatically with the issuance of an FASB Staff Position (FSP) on FASB Technical Bulletin 85-4. This FSP provides initial and subsequent measurement guidance and financial statement presentation and disclosure...

This study examines the effects of uncertainty associated with large-scale catastrophes on the informativeness of earnings announcements by property and casualty insurers. It contributes to the literature on the effects of uncertainty on the informativeness of earnings announcements by...

We use stock return data to investigate the effects of the First Executive (FE) failure on other life insurance firms. In contrast to previous studies, we explicitly test for the separate effects of individual (retail) and institutional customer responses. The announcement of an accounting...

This study examines whether the reported loss reserves of property-casualty insurers contain an implicit discount for the time value of money. Reporting the present value of loss reserves enables insurers to justify the competitive level of insurance premiums to regulators. The evidence...

Reinsurance transactions provide an immediate enhancement to insurers' earnings and equity. The study investigates the use of reinsurance for regulatory and tax purposes. Traditional and financial reinsurance are examined separately since the latter does not transfer significant insurance risk...

We examine incentives to manage accounting information within 63 property-liability insurance company conversions from mutual ownership to common stock charter. In the process of conversion, policyholders' embedded equity claims must be valued. Since mutuals have no separately traded equity,...

This paper develops the foundations for a positive theory of accounting policy choice in insurance-based contracts. I examine form and content implications of the Mayers and Smith (1981) positive theory of insurance (PTI) and then test proxies and empirical surrogates in the setting of the...

We propose a new reserve error measure net of loss development forecasting error using the most basic actuarial technique of estimating loss development. We argue that the proposed measure is better for capturing managerial discretion than the traditional reserve error measures due to its...