We examine whether rating agencies act defensively toward issuers with a higher likelihood of default. We find that agencies’ qualitative soft rating adjustments are more accurate as issuers’ default risk grows, as evidenced by the adjustments leading to lower type I and type II error rates...

This study provides evidence that, when “hard” freezing their defined benefit pension plans, employers select downward biased accounting assumptions to exaggerate the economic burden of their benefit plans. Downward biased expected rates of return and discount rates allow managers to...

We examine the causes and consequences of European real estate firms' decisions to provide investment property fair values prior to the required disclosure of this information under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). We find evidence that investor demand for fair value...

This study examines whether mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) leads to capital market benefits through enhanced financial statement comparability. UK domestic standards are considered very similar to IFRS (Bae et al. 2008), suggesting any capital market...

This case examines fair value accounting under lAS 41 for a European-listed agricultural firm. Students identify the firm's core operations, distinguishing the IFRS treatment for three distinct assets: land; agricultural assets that reside on the land; and inventory harvested from the land. They...

This case is a comparative analysis of the strategy, accounting, performance, and valuation for two restaurant chains alternatively having a company-owned versus franchising strategy. It requires students to identify these two different strategies, and the related impact on the financial...

Learning Objective:(1) introduces students to financial statements for banks and basic regulatory capital ratios (2) allows students to assess the impact of potential future write-offs/fair value decreases arising from the continuing financial crisis, and how Citigroup can respond