The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently issued a call for comment on a proposal to accept financial statements prepared in accordance with international financial reporting standards (IFRS) without reconciliation to U.S. GAAP. Accounting researchers have attempted to assess the...

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a call for comment on a proposal to adopt a Roadmap for potential use of international financial reporting standards (IFRS) by U.S. Companies. We comment on five key issues raised by the SEC proposal. First, we propose that the need for a...

The Financial Accounting Standards Board's (FASB's) and the International Accounting Standard Board's (IASB's) issued a joint Discussion Paper entitled, Preliminary Views on Financial Statement Presentation. The Boards are seeking comments on whether their proposed model for financial statement...

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 Financial Reporting Policy Committee of the Financial Accounting and Reporting Section of the American Accounting Association responded to the SEC's July 13, 2007 proposal to accept financial statements prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) from...