دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی پیامدهای اقتصادی گسترش شناخت حسابداری - Sage 2017

Abstract

This article investigates the economic consequences of including more hard-to-measure future activities in a firm’s accounting measurements. Using a simple model of endogenous investment in which payoffs are measured by either a restrictive or expanded recognition rule, we show that, in the process of expanding accounting recognition, firms’ internal investment efficiency and external share-price risk premium may not necessarily be a tradeoff. In particular, we show that the consequences of an accounting scope expansion depend on the investment environment (e.g., growth prospects) and the inherent measurement characteristics (e.g., measurement noise). For example, even with a higher measurement noise, an expanded accounting recognition may generate a lower risk premium in the share price. More surprisingly, it may lead to a higher investment efficiency and a lower risk premium at the same time. The underlying driving force is that different accounting regimes can affect the risk premium indirectly through their impacts on the investment level, beyond directly through the different measurement noise levels they bring.

Conclusion

In this article, we provide an economic model in which the conceptual scope issue with every accounting measurement has an economic meaning. In particular, we build an accounting model to highlight one important scope dimension: inclusion or exclusion of hard-to-measure future events. We embed the accounting model into a standard economic model in which the accounting measurement affects both distributional and allocational efficiency. We conclude that the scope expansion in accounting measurements may affect both real variables such as investment efficiency and financial variables such as risk premium in share prices. Specifically, we show that in the process of expanding accounting recognition, firms’ internal investment efficiency and external share-price risk premium may not necessarily be a trade-off in that an expanded recognition may lead to both a higher investment efficiency and a lower risk premium at the same time.

While we believe that our study opens the question on a key scope issue in accounting measurement, we view the article as limited on a few fronts. We have limited our attention to the formal accounting measurement and abstracted away from other forms of disclosure such as corporate voluntary disclosure and information disclosed by other market participants. These other forms of disclosure also have an impact on investment efficiency and risk premium. Similarly, outside investors are also silent in collecting their own information in our model. These topics are all fruitful avenues to explore in future studies.