دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی استاندارد جدید حسابداری اجاره چگونه بر ارتباط حسابداری دارایی اجاره تأثیر می گذارد؟ - الزویر 2018

ABSTRACT

We extend Williamson's (1973, 1987) transaction economics research to leased assets to help explain why some assets are acquired by capital lease and the use of other assets is acquired by operating lease. We look for evidence that capital leases are used for higher asset specificity assets and operating leases are used for lower asset specificity assets. Specifically, we find that returns on capital lease assets exceed the returns on operating lease assets. That the nature of capital lease assets differs from operating lease assets suggests that the lease standard SFAS 13 better categorizes assets under lease. The new lease standard ASU 2016-02 allows only one category for lease assets. From this we conclude that ASU 2016-02 will potentially have an adverse effect on the relevance of lease asset accounting.

Concluding remarks

Our results present consistent evidence that returns from capital lease assets exceed returns from operating lease assets. Our results also present consistent evidence that the differences in returns generated by capital lease assets and operating lease assets are related to underlying asset ownership risks. The results support our contention that capital lease assets and operating lease assets have fundamentally different characteristics. Stated differently, under the accounting for leases under SFAS No. 13, capital lease accounting reflects a different type of asset than does operating lease accounting. Our results are important for two reasons. First, the results suggest that lessee lease accounting generally complies with the underlying economic objective of SFAS No. 13. Capital lease accounting, intended to capture when lease agreements are substitutes for asset purchase agreements, appears to do so. Operating lease accounting, intended to capture when lease agreements are essentially rental agreements, also appears to do so. Therefore, the lease accounting procedures of SFAS No. 13 appear to be on average representationally faithful to the underlying economics of leases and, by definition, relevant in providing useful information to investors and creditors. Second, our results also suggest that the new lease standard ASU 2016-02, that allows recording only one leased asset type, will not be on average representationally faithful to the underlying economics of lease assets and therefore less relevant in providing useful information regarding the assets to investors and creditors. However, lease accounting is complicated in that it involves recording leased assets and lease liabilities. The relevance of lease asset accounting under SFAS No. 13 is likely more than offset is lost by the loss of relevance when firms structure lease contracts so as to not report lease liabilities. Consequently, a loss of lease asset relevance under ASU 2016-02, as compared to SFAS No. 13, may be offset by the gain of lease liability relevance.