Capital markets research and accounting standard setting

Accounting academics and practitioners have been known to question whether accounting research is as efficacious as it might be. This paper focuses on capital markets-based research in accounting and how its potential contribution to the wider regulatory process can be realised more fully. Examples used are: research on corporate regulation; the move to 'harmonise' accounting standards; accounting for R&D; accounting for goodwill; and equity accounting.     

Fifty years of capital markets research in accounting: Achievements so far and opportunities ahead

This paper reviews the literature on capital markets research in accounting over the last 50 years. Rather than trying to be comprehensive, the review focuses on selected areas, and strives to be forward-looking. The first major takeaway is that the literature has made great progress, especially on the technical side. The second takeaway is that great opportunities remain, especially in using Big Data, looking more closely into the accrual process, and in issues related to standard setting.     

新兴市场资本流动

文章指出,新兴市场资本流入呈现较大波动性将成未来态势,预计其2014年和2015年流人量会较2013年下降。就新兴市场资本流入的影响因素,文章分析了全球经济增长减弱的负面影响,认为新兴资本市场吸引力前景不明且出现地区分化,发达经济体货币政策预期变化和地缘政治紧张两大下行风险上升。文章探讨了G3货币政策预期变化对新兴市场资本流动的影响,并预测了亚洲、欧洲、拉美、非洲和中东等各新兴市场地区资本流动状况。     

International accounting harmonization and global equity markets

We show harmonizing domestic GAAP with foreign GAAP can have deleterious effects on security market performance, specifically price informativeness and trading volume. Harmonization effects result from interaction between two forces. Direct informational effects depend on whether harmonization increases or decreases GAAP precision. Expertise acquisition effects depend on benefits and costs to foreign investors of becoming domestic GAAP experts. These countervailing forces can result in harmonization to more (less) precise GAAP increasing (decreasing) or, unexpectedly, decreasing (increasing) price informativeness and trading volume. We also observe this for a cost of capital metric. Thus, harmonization is not necessarily a desirable singular goal.     

The effect of accounting firm mergers on international markets for accounting services

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of the accounting firm mergers on competition in the market for accounting services. This paper investigates accounting firm concentration both before and after the accounting firm mergers in ten countries. Large firms were found to dominate the market before the mergers and this dominance was extended further following the mergers, particularly in the European market. When the performance of large and small firms was compared, large firms were found to be significantly superior both before and after the merger in some European countries, possibly indicating reduced competition. Performance of large and small firms did not significantly differ in several other countries, suggesting that high levels of concentration do not necessarily mean low levels of competition.     

The timeliness of accounting disclosures in international security markets

In this study, we examine financial reporting lags, the incidence of late filing, and the relationship between reporting lags, firm performance and the degree of capital market scrutiny. We use a large sample of firms spanning 22 countries over a eleven-year period. A focal point of our analysis is whether the incidence of late filing, and the relations between reporting days and other variables, differ systematically between common and code law countries. Relative to U.S. firms, we report that the time taken and allowed for filing is usually longer in other countries and that the statutory requirement is more frequently violated. Timely filing is found to be less frequent in code law countries. Poor firm performance and longer reporting lags are more strongly linked in common law countries. We also find that whereas greater capital market scrutiny and more timely filing are related, there is less support for a relationship between the level of debt financing and timely filing in code law countries.     

Capital and risk in property-liability insurance markets

This paper investigates the capital and portfolio risk decisions of property-liability insurance firms. A theoretical model based on option pricing theory is developed which predicts a positive relationship between insurer capital and risk, as firms balance these two factors to achieve their desired overall insolvency risk. The implications of the model are then tested empirically using a simultaneous equations methodology. The results support the predictions of the model. They also provide evidence that managerial incentives play a role in determining capital and risk in insurance markets. The findings have significant implications for insurance solvency regulation.     

Capital markets research and real world complexity: The emerging challenge of chaos theory

The theories of chaos and complexity are presented as a wide-ranging new vision of the relationship between order and disorder, a new vision that is challenging many of the fundamental presuppositions of the older Newtonian world view of science. The implications of the new vision are explored in terms of their challenges to the methodological views widely espoused by capital market researchers in accounting, most notably with respect to the assumptions of linearity and predictability. Mandelbrot's early studies of economics and financial time series data, which provided many of the insights for his conception of fractals, are reviewed in terms of their challenges to the conceptual framework of the traditonal capital markets research paradigm and its extension to financial reporting issues. Contemporary studies which are reviving Mandelbrot's challenges are also reviewed, with the conclusion that they are weakening the intellectual hold of the tradtional capital markets paradigm and making it more susceptible to overthrow by a competing paradigm. Finally, an emerging new research program associated with the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) is reviewed. SFI researchers are studying financial markets as complex adaptive systems. Their preliminary findings are incompatible with the widely presumed theoretical linkage between financial reporting systems and economic efficiency, and they tend to undermine the traditonal rationale relating earnings to stock prices.     

Empirical tax research in accounting

This paper traces the development of archival, microeconomic-based, empirical income tax research in accounting over the last 15 years. The paper details three major areas of research: (i) the coordination of tax and non-tax factors, (ii) the effects of taxes on asset prices, and (iii) the taxation of multijurisdictional (international and interstate) commerce. Methodological concerns of particular interest to this field also are discussed. The paper concludes with a discussion of possible directions for future research.     

Experimental research in financial accounting

This paper uses recent experimental studies of financial accounting to illustrate our view of how such experiments can be conducted successfully. Rather than provide an exhaustive review of the literature, we focus on how particular examples illustrate successful use of experiments to determine how, when and (ultimately) why important features of financial accounting settings influence behavior. We first describe how changes in views of market efficiency, reliance on the experimentalist’s comparative advantage, new theories, and a focus on key institutional features have allowed researchers to overcome the criticisms of earlier financial accounting experiments. We then describe how specific streams of experimental financial accounting research have addressed questions about financial communication between managers, auditors, information intermediaries, and investors, and indicate how future research can extend those streams. We focus particularly on (1) how managers and auditors report information; (2) how users of financial information interpret those reports; (3) how individual decisions affect market behavior; and (4) how strategic interactions between information reporters and users can affect market outcomes. Our examples include and integrate experiments that fall into both the “behavioral” and “experimental economics” literatures in accounting. Finally, we discuss how experiments can be designed to be both effective and efficient.     

The case for strategic management accounting: The role of accounting information for strategy in competitive markets

A review of two economic theories is utilized to provide theoretical support for the greater possible involvement by accountants in what has been called strategic management accounting. One of these theories is concerned with the underlying characteristics of enterprise products. It suggests that there is a need for accountants to consider the cost structure of not only their own firm but of all enterprises in the relevant market and of potential entrants. It also suggests that costs can not be considered in isolation from demand factors. The second theory to be reviewed is concerned with whether a firm's cost structure permits its market strategy to be sustainable in the face of potential entry. This theory again emphasizes the intertwining of demand and cost factors and the need to consider these factors simultaneously. The use of this theory allows a new perspective to be taken to cost behaviour which is especially suited to high technology manufacturing.     

On cross-sectional analysis in accounting research

This paper examines cross-sectional analysis procedures common to many market-based accounting research papers. Both the economic and econometric properties of ‘levels’ and ‘returns’ studies are discussed. Topics covered include the relations between the accounting studies and cash flow valuation models, the role of expectations of accounting variables, deflators, spurious inference, risk adjustment and its relation to growth, size and leverage, residual dependence, dependence among explanatory variables, and the effect of scale differences across firms. Major conclusions are that market value is the correct deflator in returns studies, and that levels and returns studies are economically but not econometrically equivalent.     

Validation in interpretive management accounting research

This paper extends and contributes to emerging debates on the validation of interpretive research (IR) in management accounting. We argue that IR has the potential to produce not only subjectivist, emic understandings of actors’ meanings, but also explanations, characterised by a certain degree of “thickness”. Mobilising the key tenets of the modern philosophical theory of explanation and the notion of abduction, grounded in pragmatist epistemology, we explicate how explanations may be developed and validated, yet remaining true to the core premises of IR. We focus on the intricate relationship between two arguably central aspects of validation in IR, namely authenticity and plausibility. Working on the assumption that validation is an important, but potentially problematic concern in all serious scholarly research, we explore whether and how validation efforts are manifest in IR using two case studies as illustrative examples. Validation is seen as an issue of convincing readers of the authenticity of research findings whilst simultaneously ensuring that explanations are deemed plausible. Whilst the former is largely a matter of preserving the emic qualities of research accounts, the latter is intimately linked to the process of abductive reasoning, whereby different theories are applied to advance thick explanations. This underscores the view of validation as a process, not easily separated from the ongoing efforts of researchers to develop explanations as research projects unfold and far from reducible to mere technicalities of following pre-specified criteria presumably minimising various biases. These properties detract from a view of validation as conforming to pre-specified, stable, and uniform criteria and allow IR to move beyond the “crisis of validity” arguably prevailing in the social sciences.     

中国会计研究规范问题探讨

会计研究规范包括原创性标准与后继性标准。这几年中国会计研究比较突出的问题是片面地重视研究方法而忽视了研究规范建设。实证与规范研究必须同时存在、相得益彰。对中国会计界而言 ,研究规范比研究方法更重要。文章详细探讨了中国会计研究“原创性”与“后继性”的基本含义及具体衡量标准 ,试图为中国会计界评判具体会计研究成果有无价值及价值高低提供一个具体标准 ,以利于中国会计研究的健康发展。     

Large shareholders and accounting research

Large shareholders are a potentially very important element of firms’ corporate governance system. Whereas analytical research is typically vague on who these large shareholders are, in practice there are important variations in the types of large owners (and the different types of large owners could play very different governance roles). After briefly reviewing the standard agency cost arguments, in this article I emphasize the heterogeneity of concentrated ownership and in particular focus on the roles of families, institutions, governments, and employee ownership. I also discuss the role of large shareholders in private (i.e., unlisted) firms, where ownership tends to be more concentrated than in publicly traded firms. Finally, I briefly discuss variations in ownership structures across selected countries.     

The ethics of accounting research

Doctoral students and many accounting professors and practicing accountants conduct theoretical or empirical accounting research. Human subjects have been recruited in increasing numbers to participate in behavioral and attitudinal accounting studies. However, the ethical obligations of accounting researchers to other researchers and readers, to subjects, and to participating organizations have received little attention. In this paper, the history of research ethics codes in other disciplines and the ethical obligations of accounting researchers are discussed. A tentative code of ethics is presented for the purpose of stimulating discussion about ethical issues in accounting research.     

An accounting analysis of the risk-return relationship in bull and bear markets

This study provides evidence that accounting beta (earnings and cash flow-based) provides information consistent with the risk-return relationship in up- and down-markets. We are not able, however, to provide similar evidence using market beta. Considering that investors' ability to assess the risk-return trade-off in up- and down-markets is central to efficient portfolio formation, the results suggest that accounting data can provide appropriate measures of portfolio upside and downside risk.     

Empirical research on accounting choice

We review research from the 1990s that examines the determinants and consequences of accounting choice, structuring our analysis around the three types of market imperfections that influence managers’ choices: agency costs, information asymmetries, and externalities affecting non-contracting parties. We conclude that research in the 1990s made limited progress in expanding our understanding of accounting choice because of limitations in research design and a focus on replication rather than extension of current knowledge. We discuss opportunities for future research, recommending the exploration of the economic implications of accounting choice by addressing the three different reasons why accounting matters.