Following Basu (1997), the excess of the sensitivity of accounting earnings to negative share return over its sensitivity to positive share return (the Basu coefficient) has been interpreted as an indicator of conditional accounting conservatism. Although this interpretation is supported by...

The internal rate of return (IRR) is a widely used benchmark for assessing the reliability of the accounting rate of return (ROA) as a measure of economic profitability. We turn this reasoning process on its head by demonstrating that a suitable (weighted average) aggregation of ROAs better...