Bücher der Reihe Foundations and Trends (R) in Accounting

Attempts to promote a broad debate about the notion of causality and the role of causal inference in the social sciences. This volume allows researchers and students in accounting, and the social sciences, to acquire a deeper understanding of the notion of causality and the nature, limits, and scope of empirical research in the social sciences.

Provides a comprehensive summary and survey of the theoretical and empirical literature on "Say on Pay". The book theoretically studies how a poor governance structure affects the level and structure of executive pay and identifies conditions under which Say and Pay could help shareholders to improve it.

Discusses the process of analysing historical financial statement data for the purpose of developing forecasts of future earnings. This process is important because it is central to the valuation of companies and the securities they issue.

Examines the factors that drive assignment of authority inside the corporate hierarchy. In particular, the authors focus on authority assigned to middle managers or business-unit managers because decisions and actions taken at middle levels are collectively far-reaching and because little of the literature has focused on middle managers.

Introduces Bayesian theory and its role in statistical accounting information theory. The approach taken in this monograph is a Demski-like treatment of "accounting numbers" as "signals" rather than as "measurements".

Presents a new approach to the study of accounting measurement and disclosure that challenges the existing accounting literature. This approach argues that how firms' economic transactions, earnings, and capital flows are measured and reported to the capital markets has substantial effects on the allocation of resources in the economy in general.

The central theme of Competition and Cost Accounting is that strategic considerations may make it desirable for a firm to have divisions and Product managers internalize something other than their true costs.

Presents practical and conceptual issues related to fair value measurement in financial reporting and to evaluate certain research design aspects of empirical research that investigates the information properties of fair value measurement, both in an absolute sense and in comparison to other measurement bases.

Reviews and illustrates earnings management, conservatism, and their effects on earnings quality in an economic modeling framework. Both earnings management and conservative accounting introduce biases to financial reports. The primary issue addressed is what economic effects these biases have on earnings quality or financial reporting quality.

In a good financial reporting regime, attributes, goals, and practice are not mutually exclusive. It is unlikely that any one of them is entirely satisfactory by itself; they complement one another. Better Financial Reporting argues for such a syncretic attitude to financial reporting regime.

Provides a structured overview of costing system research to explain the co-existence of different costing practices. This body of research has come to prescriptive conclusions, which will of be valuable and insightful to practitioners designing costing systems and managers using reported cost data.

Costing Systems provide a structured overview of costing system research to explain the co-existence of different costing practices. This book is structured around four primary purposes of cost measurement: decision-making, cost management, inventory valuation for financial and tax accounting, and control and performance measurement.

Provides an overview of key papers in the corporate sustainability literature and directions for future research. The book is structured on three key themes: measuring corporate sustainability performance; managing corporate sustainability performance; and communicating corporate sustainability performance.

Provides an interactive step-by-step framework for analysing spoken or written language for faculty and PhD students in social sciences. The goal is to demonstrate how textual analysis can enhance research by automatically extracting new and previously unknown information from voluminous disclosures, news articles, and social media posts.

Focuses on accounting disclosure within a non-contractual setting in which Revelation Principle does not apply. The book examines a setting featuring a sender - a firm manager or a sell-side equity analyst - who has some information about a firm to communicate to a receiver - an investor - to help value the firm.

Reviews the academic literature on market outcomes, reporting practices and the political economy behind the global use of International Financial Reporting Standards. Starting with a conceptual discussion of expected benefits and costs, the authors explain why predictions on possible outcomes are ambiguous.

Surveys the stream developments in the regulation and standard setting that have set the requirements for companies' financial reporting in the US capital market. Attention is given to instances in which the SEC has either been in disagreement with the private-sector accounting standard setter, or where they have partnered in a solution.

Accounting for Risk is about using accounting information to assess risk and the required return for bearing that risk. The focus is on investing in firms and the equity claims on firms: How much should an investor discount the price of a share in a firm for risk, and how can accounting information help to answer that question?

Focuses on estimating the expected rate of return implied by market prices, summary accounting numbers, and forecasts of earnings and dividends. Estimates of the expected rate of return, often used as proxies for the cost of capital, are obtained by inverting accounting-based valuation models.

Summarises accounting history over the past ten thousand years. This literature review provides useful examples for subsequent sections and can be used as a primer of accounting history. The authors explain how accounting history can inform scholars studying modern institutions by analysing several exemplary research papers.

Aggregates the large body of international tax literature succinctly in one location. Very little of what is incorporated in this piece is novel. Rather, it borrows heavily from those researchers who have focused their careers on understanding taxation in the multinational context.

Discusses the evolution of three main streams within the financial distress prediction literature: the set of dependent and explanatory variables used, the statistical methods of estimation, and the modeling of financial distress.

Reviews the interactions between Board of Director's role in governance and oversight, executive evaluation, and organisational goals, including truthful disclosure of earnings and investment in long-term projects.

Presents three variants of the neoclassical investment model and characterizes the firm's optimal investment policy, equity value, and the desirable properties of accrual accounting rules in each setting.

Provides a compact introduction to academic research on market efficiency, behavioural finance, and fundamental analysis. The book is dedicated to the kind of decision-driven and prospectively-focused research that is much needed in a market constantly seeking to become more efficient.

Reviews prior studies and proposes new research directions for the corporate governance of China's listed firms. The primary focus is to investigate the underlying relation between China's institutional environment and its listed firms' corporate governance, and show how formal and informal governance mechanisms actually work within these firms.

Presents a model of earnings and dividends leading up to the core principle that growth in earnings explains the price to forward-earnings ratio. This model is referred to as the OJ (Ohlson and Jeuttner-Nauroth) model. The OJ model takes into account the near term and the long term to explain the price to forward-earnings ratio.

Provides a comprehensive summary and analysis of the specific earnings quality issues pertaining to key line item components of the financial statements. After providing an overview of earnings quality and earnings management, it analyzes key line items from the financial statements.

Reviews current research activities around earnings quality. The book provides an overview of alternative definitions and measures of earnings quality and a discussion of research design choices encountered in earnings quality research with a focus on capital markets.

Reviews and critically examines the standard approach to equity valuation using a constant risk-adjusted cost of capital and develops a new valuation approach discounting risk-adjusted fundamentals using nominal zero-coupon interest rates.