The introduction of a new accounting standard for financial instruments has raised a number of issues related to the application of fair value principles. This paper discusses some of these issues which are generally related to the fact that fair values are not always easily defined or readily...

This study addresses whether asset securitizations are really asset sales or a form of secured borrowing, by estimating cross-sectional equity valuation regressions to assess whether the stock market treats securitized assets and liabilities held by a special purpose entity (SPE) as assets and...

Existing empirical evidence suggests that residual income valuation models based on historical cost accounting considerably underestimate equity values. One possible explanation is the use of historical cost accounting under inflationary conditions. In this paper, we use a residual income...

The present paper reviews the research evidence on the impact of changes in pension accounting methods on pension provision. We show that decisions to freeze, terminate or convert defined benefit (DB) plans have been driven primarily by a desire to limit contributions, though financial reporting...

We investigate whether and if so, how, corporate governance 'quality'<link rid="fn2">-super-1</link> is related to the information flows from a company and how the share market and its agents respond. Specifically, we study links between the 'quality' of a firm's corporate governance (CGQ) and the informativeness of...

This paper examines the links between accounting quality, proxied by earnings timeliness and conservatism, and the composition of the board of directors. Results indicate that firms with a higher proportion of outside board members are more likely to recognise bad news in earnings on a timely...