Reporting of book-tax differences for financial and tax purposes: A case study

Recent events in financial and tax accounting have brought the issue of financial accounting for tax expenses to the forefront of both the accounting profession and academia. Complexities abound on both sides, from ASC 740/FAS 109 and ASC 740-10/FIN 48 issues on the financial accounting side to the Schedule M-3 and Schedule UTP reporting requirements on the tax side. This complexity has created a vacuum in accounting curricula, as bits and pieces of the total puzzle are covered in the intermediate accounting and tax courses, without a comprehensive, integrated review in one place.     

A comparative study of the probability of default for global financial firms

This article presents a modification of Merton’s (1976) ruin option pricing model to estimate the implied probability of default from stock and option market prices. To test the model, we analyze all global financial firms with traded options in the US and focus on the subprime mortgage crisis period. We compare the performance of the implied probability of default from our model to the expected default frequencies based on the Moody’s KMV model and agency credit ratings by constructing cumulative accuracy profiles (CAP) and the receiver operating characteristic (ROC). We find that the probability of default estimates from our model are equal or superior to other credit risk measures studied based on CAP and ROC. In particular, during the subprime crisis our model surpassed credit ratings and matched or exceeded KMV in anticipating the magnitude of the crisis. We have also found some initial evidence that adding off-balance-sheet derivatives exposure improves the performance of the KMV model.     

The roles and effects of paradigms in accounting research

This paper discusses the roles and effects of paradigms in accounting research in general, and management accounting research in particular. In addition, it forms an introduction to the Special Section of this issue of Management Accounting Research on “Paradigms in Accounting Research”. The paper takes an issue of the notable narrowness of accounting research of today, regarding it as forming a threat to scholarly developments in the field. It argues for the importance of keeping paradigm debates alive in order to foster multi-dimensional openness and true scholarship in accounting research.     

Valuation-based accounting research: Implications for financial reporting and opportunities for future research

This paper discusses the relation between financial reporting research and practice, particularly standard setters. Many studies addressing financial reporting issues use a valuation approach. The paper describes alternative approaches to valuation research and summarises the findings relating to four major current issues: fair value accounting for financial, tangible, and intangible assets, cash flows versus accruals, recognition versus disclosure, and international harmonisation of accounting standards. The summaries include identifying what standard setters and others would like to learn from research, what we have learned, and what is left to learn. The paper concludes with observations about future financial reporting academic research.     

A classification scheme for financial accounting research

This article uses a framework of the policymaking process to summarize and integrate the existing financial accounting research. The framework is first described and then used to identify and integrate six major research perspectives that have emerged in financial accounting. Special emphasis is given in the article to explaining the motivation and evolution of financial accounting research on economic consequences. The framework could best serve as the basis for an outline in a seminar designed to introduce financial accounting research to accounting doctoral students.     

Behavioral accounting research: Pathologies,paradigms and prescriptions

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate behavioral accounting research by analyzing the quantity and quality of its interactions with the more basic social sciences and with the more applied disciplines, and by contrasting these interaction patterns with those observed in another accounting research setting. The empiricism is based upon the technique of citation analysis. The qualitative interpretation of the results is that behavioral accounting research is pre-paradigmatic but progressing.     

The effect of foreign currency hedging on the probability of financial distress

This paper investigates the effect of foreign currency hedging with derivatives on the probability of financial distress. I use Merton’s (1974) structural default model to compute firms’ distance to default as a proxy for their probability of financial distress. Using an instrumental variables approach to control for endogenous hedging and leverage, I find that the extent of foreign currency hedging is associated with a lower probability of financial distress. Whereas previous research finds that the probability of financial distress is a determinant of a firm’s hedging policy, this paper provides direct evidence supporting the hypothesis that the extent of hedging reduces a firm’s probability of financial distress.     

金融危机下我国中小企业融资难的原因分析及对策研究

2008年末,随着一场金融海啸来袭,全球经济进入了“寒冬”。在这场金融海啸和寒流的双重冲击下,我国的中小企业面临着严峻的考验,如何帮助中小企业“过冬”成为时下的热点问题。本文通过分析中小企业融资难的原因,提出切实解决中小企业融资瓶颈的建议措施,以帮助我国中小企业顺利度过“寒冬”。     

The financial close process: Implications for future research

This study advances our understanding of the current financial close process. Attention to the topic is warranted for four reasons. First, economic volatility and growth in restatements have increased pressure on companies to report performance timely, completely, and accurately to market participants. Second, recent regulations have increased the workload for accountants at period end thus negatively impacting the efficiency of the close process. Third, several SEC filings have contained control weaknesses related to the financial close process. Finally, academic research suggests that the time needed to complete the financial close process may serve as a proxy for a company's internal information environment quality. We draw upon prior research and conduct a field investigation with corporate financial officers from 22 different organizations to examine the role of four factors – need to meet expectations, collaboration among multiple participants, estimation process, and ability to incorporate new regulations – in the financial close process. Results suggest that researchers should examine further how the need to meet (or beat) expectations impacts management's actions and the effectiveness and efficiency of the financial close process. Future work could also explore how hidden profile task research and technology advances may improve the financial close process. Finally, research needs to examine how ex post estimate analysis may improve not only estimate quality but also the effectiveness and efficiency of the financial close process.     

An accountability framework for financial statement auditors and related research questions

We address the following overarching questions: What kind of accountability framework could regulators use to (a) motivate auditors to improve audit quality, and (b) evaluate how well auditors have carried out their duties? We draw on research in accounting, economics, psychology, and neuroscience to critique the accountabilities, incentives, and learning opportunities embedded in auditors’ extant regulatory environment. We first establish that forward-looking estimates are the basis for most financial statement information and that some of these estimates are highly uncertain, which increases the challenges faced by auditors. We propose an accountability framework with two dimensions: rewards versus penalties and processes versus outcomes. We show that auditors’ current regulatory accountabilities generally are in the form of penalties rather than rewards and primarily depend on audit outcomes rather than attributes of auditors’ judgment processes. We provide evidence from a range of disciplines that questions the suitability of the present system for improving the quality of auditors’ judgments and the quality of evaluations of those judgments made by inspectors. We identify four potential changes for improvement in audit quality based on our framework. Each of these identified changes has an impact on one or both of the two dimensions in our framework. For each of these changes, we outline JDM research questions that could be addressed to inform our overarching questions and to provide empirical evidence to help refine our accountability framework and improve audit quality.     

A quality-based global assessment of financial research

We conduct rankings on finance programs based on a rich database of citations for all articles from a set of 23 quality finance journals during 1990–2010. Our work represents a new perspective on the evaluation of faculty research as compared to the traditional counting of total number of publications in the literature. Our findings show that the top-five institutions are the University of Chicago, Harvard University, New York University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Duke University. In general, the top programs are able to produce a large number of high impact articles and a majority of their citations are drawn from premier finance journals. In addition, European and Asia–Pacific institutions are doing very well during the recent years. Our author assessment suggests that for an author with at least five normalized citations per year from articles that appeared in the 23 finance journals, she will be in the top 1.7 % of all authors.     

Overcoming the subjective–objective divide in interpretive management accounting research

Methodological debates in accounting frequently emphasise the distinction between objective and subjective research. A growing body of interpretive management accounting studies, often based on fieldwork, is continuing to develop approaches that seek to overcome that distinction by exploring the various ways in which accounting can become part of the contexts in which it operates.     

Equity compensation and the sensitivity of research and development to financial market frictions

When financial market frictions exist, executives may have to decide which investment activities to reduce when internal funds decrease. Expenditures on research and development (R&D) may be particularly vulnerable because of the long-term nature of innovative activity. We find that equity compensation is associated with lower levels of firm R&D expenditures. Rewarding executives to incur more risk has little effect on R&D expenditures, but rewarding executives for higher returns reduces R&D expenditures and makes R&D expenditures more sensitive to financial market frictions. In contrast, cash compensation reduces the sensitivity of R&D expenditures to financial market frictions.     

Risk reporting quality: implications of academic research for financial reporting policy

In this paper, I survey empirical research on the relevance of firms’ financial report information for the evaluation of their risk. I recommend that financial reporting policymakers require or encourage firms to enhance their risk reporting quality in four ways. First, firms should report comprehensive income statements that: (1) use fair value or a similarly information-rich accounting measurement attribute and (2) separate the components of comprehensive income that are primarily driven by variation in cash flows from those that are primarily driven by variation in costs of capital. Such comprehensive income statements would provide users of financial reports with the flexibility to calculate alternative summary accounting numbers and to perform different types of risk assessment analyses. Second, firms should conduct and disclose the results of back-tests of prior significant accrual estimates, indicating any identified trends in and drivers of revisions to those estimates, and describing the effects of those revisions on current or future summary accounting numbers. Third, firms should aggregate and present risk disclosures in tabular or other well-structured formats that promote the usability of the information. Identifying existing best disclosure practices and encouraging new best practices are the most natural way to do this. Fourth, for model-dependent risk disclosures, firms should disclose the primary historical and forward-looking attributes of the models and their implementation in practice, sensitivity of the model outputs, and benchmarking of the models to standard portfolios of exposures.     

地方中小金融机构发展情况研究——以吉林省松原市为例

地方中小金融机构主要以农村信用社和村镇银行的发展为主。截至2011年末,农村信用社在国家政策扶持下,资金实力不断增强,历史包袱得到一定化解,信贷规模大幅上升,有力支持了农村经济发展,发挥了农村金融主力军和联系农民的金融纽带的作用。村镇银行成立以来,存贷款增长较快,各项业务发展迅速,成为农村金融市场有益补充,但这些地方中小金融机构在经营发展过程中,仍存在诸多问题,值得关注。本文旨在通过剖析地方中小金融机构发展中存在的问题,提出促进地方中小金融机构长期发展的合理化建议,为地方中小金融机构的健康发展提供理论支撑。     

税务会计原则、财务会计原则的比较与思考

由于税务会计要以税法为导向,因此,体现税收原则的税收核算原则也就是税务会计原则。税务会计原则一般都隐含在税法中,它虽然远远不如(财务)会计原则那么明确、那么公认,但其刚性、其硬度,却要明显高于(财务)会计原则,纳税人一旦违反,就要受到税法等相关法律的惩处。文章对由税法主导的税务会计原则与投资人导向的财务会计原则进行了比较,从中可见两者的差异及其产生的原因。研究税务会计原则与财务会计原则的差异,旨在探讨如何构建符合国际化发展趋势的税务会计与财务会计的关系模式。     

Comparison of sales performance across financial service sectors

In the new world of financial services, comparisons are going to have to be made on the productivity and performance of the various sales representatives within the industry: stockbrokers, bank sales representatives, financial planners and insurance agents and brokers. This paper discusses the problems involved in making cross-sector comparisons and proposes a way to compare the production of sales representatives who sell equity products with sales representatives who sell risk products. Comparisons are also presented for sales rep earnings and turnover.     

中日汽车业财务竞争力评价与比较研究

企业财务竞争力是企业竞争力的最重要方面。随着我国汽车市场对外开放的不断加深,中国汽车工业的发展不仅面临着外资进入所产生的国际竞争国内化的压力,而且面临着在国际市场上与外国企业一较高下的竞争压力。在汽车制造技术和创新能力与日本等汽车制造强国存在差距的情况下,研究中日两国汽车业财务竞争力的差异就是本文研究的核心。本文通过构建定量财务指标,采用熵权法对两国汽车业的财务评价指标进行赋权,建立基于熵权法的中日汽车业财务竞争力评价模型,分析评价两国汽车业的财务竞争力,探索加强我国汽车业财务竞争力的具体措施。     

无线光通信在金融行业的应用分析与研究

无线光通信作为一种近年复兴的宽带通信技术,在金融行业的数据通信中有着广阔的应用前景。本文结合理论研究和市场调查,分析了无线光通信技术在金融通信网中应用的优越性,研究了它的关键技术、组网方案以及典型应用场合,并从购进成品和自主开发两个角度,给出其在金融行业的工程实现方法。一、无线光通信及其原理无线光通信又称自由空间光通信、大气激光通信,是一种不使用光纤等传输介质而利用光的直线传播原理将携带有信息的激光束在空气中进行语音、数据、多媒体图像的双向传送的宽带通信技术。上世纪中叶对无线光通信曾有过研究热潮,但到…     

Publication outlets for healthcare financial research: A study of journal quality perceptions

Publications in high quality journals often serve to indicate research productivity. However, many top‐rated journals infrequently publish cross‐disciplinary topics such as healthcare financial management (HFM). So, academic administrators and HFM researchers find it challenging to evaluate the quality of the work. Journals open to publishing HFM articles are distributed across multiple disciplines. Each field has its own journal rankings typically focused on their primary subject area. Starting with prior literature, we form a cross‐disciplinary journal list and solicit preliminary input from editors, associated editors, reviewers, and authors. We then solicit confirmatory ranking input from independent researchers in a holdout sample.