A claim is commonly made that cash flow and accrual accounting methods for valuing equities must always yield equivalent valuations. A recent paper by Lundholm and O'Keefe (2001), for example, claims that, because of this equivalence, there is nothing to be learned from empirical comparison of...

This paper presents a framework for addressing normative accounting issues for reporting to shareholders. The framework is an alternative to the emerging Conceptual Framework of the International Accounting Standards Board and the Financial Accounting Standards Board. The framework can be...

The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) recently issued a joint exposure draft on accounting for leases. This exposure draft seeks to shift lease accounting from an “ownership” model to a “right-to-use” model. Under the...

Standard setters and most academics maintain that accounting standards ought to rest on a set of guiding principles stated explicitly in a “conceptual framework.” The FASB and IASB are currently involved in a project to refine conceptual framework documents developed earlier. At this point,...

Standard formulas for valuing the equity of going concerns require prediction of payoffs "to infinity" but practical analysis requires that they be predicted over finite horizons. This truncation inevitably involves (often troublesome) "terminal value" calculations. This paper contrasts dividend...

During the recent stock market bubble, the traditional financial reporting model was assailed as a backward looking system, out of date in the Information Age. With the bursting of the bubble, the quality of financial reporting is again under scrutiny, but now for not adhering to traditional...

This paper estimates the cost of capital from observed accounting information and compares the resulting estimates with so-called implied cost of capital (ICC) calculations and those from asset pricing models. The estimates are based on the idea that buying earnings growth is risky, and...

The paper presents an accounting framework for identifying characteristics that indicate expected returns. A model links expected returns to expected earnings and earnings growth, so a characteristic indicates expected returns if it indicates expected earnings and earnings growth that the market...

This paper offers an approach for estimating the cost of capital from observed accounting information and compares the resulting estimates to so-called implied cost of capital (ICC) calculations and those from asset pricing models. The approach is based on two ideas. First, buying expected...

This paper constructs a fundamental pricing factor based on observed accounting information. In contrast to standard models where accounting data often enter via data dredging, the factor is founded on consumption-based asset pricing theory and accounting principles that connect accounting...