We examine four key conceptual tensions that are at the heart of many financial reporting dilemmas: stocks vs. flows, ex-ante vs. ex post, conventions vs. economic substance, and top-down design vs. bottom-up evolution as sources of accounting practice. Associated with each of these conceptual...

Standard setters have sought a conceptual framework to guide development of a consistent set of accounting standards. However, the framework has two key weaknesses. First, it is very broad, lacks a measurement framework, and can be used ex post to justify a wide range of actual accounting...

The FASB and the IASB recently issued a joint discussion paper entitled, Preliminary Views on Revenue Recognition in Contracts with Customers. The Boards requested comments on whether their proposed model for revenue recognition would improve the usefulness of the financial statement information...