IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jaecon/v46y2008i2-3p312-333.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A positive theory of flexibility in accounting standards

Author

Listed:
  • Dye, Ronald A.
  • Sridhar, Sri S.

Abstract

We develop a positive theory of accounting standards when standards generate network externalities and differ in the amount of reporting discretion, or flexibility, they provide firms. We evaluate expected value-maximizing firms' preferences between two standards regimes, rigid and flexible, as the number of firms subject to each standard varies, as the organization of the securities market varies, and as the mapping from the underlying economics of the firms' transactions to the accounting reports produced under the two standards vary. We also compare firms' preferences between the two regimes to the preferences of profit-maximizing traders in the firms' securities.

Suggested Citation

  • Dye, Ronald A. & Sridhar, Sri S., 2008. "A positive theory of flexibility in accounting standards," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(2-3), pages 312-333, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jaecon:v:46:y:2008:i:2-3:p:312-333
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165-4101(08)00053-0
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bikhchandani, Sushil & Segal, Uzi & Sharma, Sunil, 1992. "Stochastic dominance under Bayesian learning," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 352-377, April.
    2. Kanodia, C & Mukherji, A & Sapra, H & Venugopalan, R, 2000. "Hedge disclosures, future prices, and production distortions," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38, pages 53-82.
    3. Grossman, Sanford J, 1981. "The Informational Role of Warranties and Private Disclosure about Product Quality," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(3), pages 461-483, December.
    4. Kanodia, Chandra, 1980. "Effects of Shareholder Information on Corporate Decisions and Capital Market Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 923-953, May.
    5. Katz, Michael L & Shapiro, Carl, 1986. "Technology Adoption in the Presence of Network Externalities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(4), pages 822-841, August.
    6. Leftwich, Richard, 1980. "Market failure fallacies and accounting information," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 193-211, December.
    7. Fields, Thomas D. & Lys, Thomas Z. & Vincent, Linda, 2001. "Empirical research on accounting choice," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1-3), pages 255-307, September.
    8. Holthausen, Robert W. & Leftwich, Richard W., 1983. "The economic consequences of accounting choice implications of costly contracting and monitoring," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 77-117, April.
    9. Paul R. Milgrom, 1981. "Good News and Bad News: Representation Theorems and Applications," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 12(2), pages 380-391, Autumn.
    10. Katz, Michael L & Shapiro, Carl, 1985. "Network Externalities, Competition, and Compatibility," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(3), pages 424-440, June.
    11. Foster, George, 1981. "Intra-industry information transfers associated with earnings releases," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 201-232, December.
    12. Chandra Kanodia & Haresh Sapra & Raghu Venugopalan, 2004. "Should Intangibles Be Measured: What Are the Economic Trade‐Offs?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(1), pages 89-120, March.
    13. Kyle, Albert S, 1985. "Continuous Auctions and Insider Trading," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(6), pages 1315-1335, November.
    14. Michael J. Fishman & Kathleen M. Hagerty, 1992. "Insider Trading and the Efficiency of Stock Prices," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 23(1), pages 106-122, Spring.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Qi Chen & Tracy R. Lewis & Katherine Schipper & Yun Zhang, 2017. "Uniform Versus Discretionary Regimes in Reporting Information with Unverifiable Precision and a Coordination Role," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(1), pages 153-196, March.
    2. Anil Arya & Brian Mittendorf & Ram N. V. Ramanan, 2022. "Tax-Favored Stock Donations by Corporate Insiders and Consequences for Equity Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(11), pages 8506-8514, November.
    3. Gao, Pingyang & Jiang, Xu, 2020. "The economic consequences of discrete recognition and continuous measurement," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1).
    4. Minlei Ye & Dan A. Simunic, 2013. "The Economics of Setting Auditing Standards," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(3), pages 1191-1215, September.
    5. Vivian W. Fang & Michael Iselin & Gaoqing Zhang, 2022. "Consistency as a Means to Comparability: Theory and Evidence," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(6), pages 4279-4300, June.
    6. Mirko S. Heinle & Robert E. Verrecchia, 2016. "Bias and the Commitment to Disclosure," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(10), pages 2859-2870, October.
    7. Beyer, Anne & Cohen, Daniel A. & Lys, Thomas Z. & Walther, Beverly R., 2010. "The financial reporting environment: Review of the recent literature," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 296-343, December.
    8. Bertomeu, Jeremy & Magee, Robert P., 2011. "From low-quality reporting to financial crises: Politics of disclosure regulation along the economic cycle," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 209-227.
    9. Wu, Sang & Xue, Wenjie, 2023. "Accounting comparability and relative performance evaluation by capital markets," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(1).
    10. Mitchell Oler, 2015. "Determinants of the length of time a firm’s book-to-market ratio is greater than one," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 45(3), pages 509-539, October.
    11. Kabir, Humayun & Su, Li & Rahman, Asheq, 2020. "Firm life cycle and the disclosure of estimates and judgments in goodwill impairment tests: Evidence from Australia," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3).
    12. Nanhee Hong & Junyong Shim, 2019. "The Effect of the Adoption of International Accounting Standards No. 12 (IAS No. 12) for Firms Reporting Losses: Evidence from Korea," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(20), pages 1-24, October.
    13. Huang, Yong & Yan, Chao, 2020. "Global accounting standards, financial statement comparability, and the cost of capital," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 301-318.
    14. Jiajun Jiang & Qi Liu & Bo Sun, 2020. "Investor Sentiment and the (Discretionary) Accrual-return Relation," International Finance Discussion Papers 1300, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    15. Liu, Qi & Sun, Bo, 2018. "Managerial manipulation, corporate governance, and limited market participation," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 98-117.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Narayanan, Ranga, 2000. "Insider trading and the voluntary disclosure of information by firms," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 395-425, March.
    2. Gao, Pingyang, 2008. "Disclosure Quality, Cost of Capital, and Investors’ Welfare," MPRA Paper 9478, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Jun 2008.
    3. Drew Fudenberg, 2015. "Tirole's Industrial Regulation and Organization Legacy in Economics," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 117(3), pages 771-800, July.
    4. Beyer, Anne & Cohen, Daniel A. & Lys, Thomas Z. & Walther, Beverly R., 2010. "The financial reporting environment: Review of the recent literature," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 296-343, December.
    5. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107687899.
    6. Dye, Ronald A., 2001. "An evaluation of "essays on disclosure" and the disclosure literature in accounting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1-3), pages 181-235, December.
    7. Paugam, Luc, 2011. "Valorisation et reporting du goodwill : enjeux théoriques et empiriques," Economics Thesis from University Paris Dauphine, Paris Dauphine University, number 123456789/8007 edited by Casta, Jean-François.
    8. Elchanan Ben-Porath & Eddie Dekel & Barton L Lipman, 2018. "Disclosure and Choice," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(3), pages 1471-1501.
    9. Kothari, S.P. & Ramanna, Karthik & Skinner, Douglas J., 2010. "Implications for GAAP from an analysis of positive research in accounting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 246-286, December.
    10. Verrecchia, Robert E., 2001. "Essays on disclosure," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1-3), pages 97-180, December.
    11. Marco Di Maggio & Marco Pagano, 2018. "Financial Disclosure and Market Transparency with Costly Information Processing [Bargaining with incomplete information]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 22(1), pages 117-153.
    12. Choi, Jay Pil & Kristiansen, Eirik Gaard & Nahm, Jae, 2017. "Communication of soft information: Reputation and imperfect enforcement of reporting quality," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 91-106.
    13. Jungherr, Joachim, 2016. "Bank opacity and financial crises," Economics Working Papers ADE2016/02, European University Institute.
    14. Chandra Kanodia & Haresh Sapra, 2016. "A Real Effects Perspective to Accounting Measurement and Disclosure: Implications and Insights for Future Research," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(2), pages 623-676, May.
    15. Daniel Broxterman & Tingyu Zhou, 2023. "Information Frictions in Real Estate Markets: Recent Evidence and Issues," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 66(2), pages 203-298, February.
    16. Lo, Kin, 2003. "Economic consequences of regulated changes in disclosure: the case of executive compensation," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 285-314, August.
    17. Kumar, Praveen & Langberg, Nisan & Oded, Jacob & Sivaramakrishnan, K., 2017. "Voluntary disclosure and strategic stock repurchases," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 207-230.
    18. Xing, Xuejing & Yan, Shan, 2018. "Labor unions and information asymmetry among investors," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 174-187.
    19. Belleflamme, Paul & Omrani, Nessrine & Peitz, Martin, 2015. "The economics of crowdfunding platforms," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 11-28.
    20. Jungherr, Joachim, 2018. "Bank opacity and financial crises," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 157-176.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jaecon:v:46:y:2008:i:2-3:p:312-333. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jae .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.