Evidence-based financial reporting regulation

In this introductory paper at the Abacus Forum on International Financial Reporting, I contend that it is difficult to argue that financial reporting and disclosure regulation around the world is evidence-based. Anecdotes and references to more systematic research and surveys of research are used to demonstrate this. 'Evidence-based' is a term that I borrow from medicine. There the term stands for basing medical patient care and health policy choices on the 'current best scientific] evidence'. I contend that financial reporting and disclosure regulation (and perhaps practice as well) are currently not evidence-based in the specific sense of not being based on the current best scientific evidence available about accounting and auditing. Next I discuss possible causes of this state of affairs and look at future possibilities for financial reporting and disclosure regulation to become (more) evidence-based. The discussion ends by providing a link with the papers that follow in this issue.