Accounting aggregation: User preferences and decision making

This experiment tests the effects of alternative aggregations of accounting data in a simulated portfolio task. Certain entropy-based aggregation criteria were used to prepare differentially aggregated financial statements for use in the task. Subjects made allocations of initial edowments between hypothetical firms, disclosed confidence in their allocation decisions and reported on specific characteristics of the financial statements. Differences in reported usefulness of statement sets furnished were found to be associated strongly with measured information content. The results also provide limited evidence that decisions and judgments of subjects were affected by the information content of the accounting aggregations provided.