Complementing the recent review of the banking literature in accounting by Beatty and Liao (2014), I offer my own thoughts on the role of financial accounting in banking. I focus my discussion on real effects of accounting policy choices on individual bank risk taking and codependence of risk...

Fair value estimates of debt and equity securities play an increasingly important role in the economy. For example, International Financial Reporting Standards require companies to report many of their investments at fair value on the balance sheet or to use fair values in goodwill impairment...