Standard setters contend fair value accounting yields the most relevant measurement for financial instruments. We examine this claim by comparing the value relevance of banks' financial statements under fair value accounting with that under current GAAP, which is largely based on historical...

We survey commercial bank lenders to better understand how they evaluate and react to variation in financial statement quality and how they view recent changes in accounting standards. A unique aspect of this study is that our respondents focus on medium-size loans to private companies. In fact,...

Some claim that rules-based accounting standards shield firms from litigation, while others argue that violations of detailed rules give plaintiffs a “roadmap” to successful litigation. We inform this debate by investigating whether rules-based standards are associated with the incidence of...

Despite debate on the desirability of rules-based standards, no studies provide evidence on why accounting standards take on rules-based characteristics. We identify and test five theories from prior research (litigation risk, constraining opportunism, complexity, transaction frequency, and age)...