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...

Critics argue that the “fair value” provisions in U.S. accounting rules exacerbated the recent financial crisis by depleting banks' regulatory capital, which curtailed lending and triggered asset sales, leading to further economic turmoil. Defenders counter-argue that the role of fair value...

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...

Revenue recognition and measurement principles can conflict with liability recognition and measurement principles. We explore here under different market conditions when the two measurement approaches coincide and when they conflict. We show that where entities expect to earn lsquo;super...

Accounting is sometimes seen just as a veil leaving the economic fundamentals unaffected. Indeed, in the context of completely frictionless markets, where assets trade in fully liquid markets and there are no problems of perverse incentives, accounting would be irrelevant since reliable market...

This research studies, through a content analysis of the comment letters to the IVSC's project on intangible assets fair value determination, the legitimacy of this professional body, or of the accounting associations, to develop measurement standards specific to this accounting concept. At...

Whether fair value accounting should be used in financial reporting has been the subject of debate for many years. A key dimension to this debate is whether fair value earnings can provide information to financial statement users that is helpful in making their economic decisions. A criticism of...