Over the last decade, there has been much empirical research on Chinese accounting conservatism. This research started with Ball, Robin and Wu (2000) that was one of the first papers to apply modern research methods to Chinese data. In this paper, I survey the early research on conservatism to...

Over the last decade, there has been much empirical research on Chinese accounting conservatism. This research started with Ball, Robin and Wu (2000) that was one of the first papers to apply modern research methods to Chinese data. In this paper, I survey the early research on conservatism to...

We consider accounting from an evolutionary perspective. Accounting encompasses the creation of transactional records, the summarization of records in t-accounts, and the preparation of audited financial statements. Accounting's history spans at least 10,000 years dating back to the first human...

This supplement is a companion piece to NeuroAccounting: Consilience Between the Biologically-Evolved Brain and Culturally-Evolved Accounting Principles. We provide brief summaries of five studies from neuroscience along with key aspects of the findings that are cited in the NeuroAccounting paper

This essay is based on a keynote speech at the 2014 Journal of International Accounting Research (JIAR) Conference. That talk was built upon a 2009 American Accounting Association (AAA) annual meeting panel presentation titled “Is there any scientific legitimacy to what we teach in Accounting...

Auditors' incentives to be conservative are likely to vary both cross-sectionally and over time based on their legal liability exposure. We predict that Big Eight (Six/Five) auditors are likely to be more conservative than non-Big Eight Auditors. We show that the earnings reported by Big Eight...

An examination of analysts' accuracy in predicting annual earnings for firms reporting losses and firms reporting profits finds that analysts are ten times more accurate in predicting the earnings of profit firms. They have also improved their predictive ability for profit firms since the...

Pope and Walker examine differences in the timeliness and conservatism of U.S. and U.K. reported earnings. They conclude that the U.S. accounting regime appears significantly more conservative than the U.K. regime, when comparing earnings before extraordinary items. However, when comparing...

Sivakumar and Waymire examine differences in the properties of US railroads' reported earnings before and after concurrent changes in accounting rules and rate regulations. Although the accounting rules were intended to combat income smoothing, Sivakumar and Waymire find little evidence that...