Financial Accounting Standards Research Initiative

Somebody asked me about Nike’s redeemable preferred stock. SFAS 150 is not my area of expertise really, but .. the question that came to me was “is this in the mezannine?” I understood that nothing was there anymore. This company (nike) seems to be putting it in the mezannine but not really .. [...] Read more > >

I just came across this and have listened only to part of the first series (of five) but it seems quite interesting (and humorous). http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00r401p/A_Brief_History_of_Double_Entry_Bookkeeping_Episode_1/ Read more > >

Let’s suppose that a student (me for example), about to start a PhD program, came to you and asked for a summer readings list to introduce them to financial accounting research. What would be on that list? I’ll throw out a couple of my own ideas, but I’m very interested in hearing yours. Most of JAE [...] Read more > >

My colleague here at Texas, John McInnis, just sent around an interesting email to the UT faculty. I thought I’d share it more broadly. He raises an interesting question..   The web is a abuzz with the release of the Lehman Brothers post-mortem by the Bankruptcy Examiner yesterday.  I wasn’t aware of potential accounting gimmicks:  http://www.economist.com/business-finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15695099  Many are starting [...] Read more > >

Part of Tuesday’s Roundtable with Scott Dyreng focused on how social norms might interact with accounting and financial reporting.  In the typed and voice chat, reference was made to a paper by Paul Fischer and Steven Huddart, titled “Optimal Contracting with Endogenous Social Norms” (American Economic Review, Sept 2008, 1459-75).  I really like the paper, [...] Read more > >

In class yesterday, I stumbled upon an interesting apparent inconsistency between accounting for pensions and the accounting for compensated employee absences, which I had taught several weeks ago. When teaching my students about accruing for vacation pay, I observed that it seemed that if we knew for certain that employees were likely to get a raise [...] Read more > >

Big thanks to Mark Evans and everyone who participated in yesterday’s Round Table. We look forward to seeing you all next week. Read more > >

Join us Tuesday, March 9 at 4pm when Scott Dyreng of Duke University discusses his recent research on the cost of violating covenants on private debt.  The key message of the paper is that firms are willing to pay extra taxes in order to avoid debt covenant violations.  The study uses [...] Read more > >

I just read an article (p. 22) about the CPA examination changes effective Jan. 1, 2011. The AICPA official release can be found here. There are several major changes taking place at the same time. I list three below: 1. Switch from two case-based simulations to six or seven task-based simulations. 2. Testing of the organization and use [...] Read more > >

About a year ago (March 12, 2009) the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government Sponsored Entities held a hearing titled “Mark-to-Market Accounting: Practices and Implications.”  The Committee members directed several hours of fairly hostile questioning to FASB Chairman Bob Herz and SEC Chief Accountant Jim Kroeker.  If you have not seen [...] Read more > >

On Tuesday, January 12th we had a Round Table Event with Jim Leisenring from the IASB. To view the archived video and a brief summary of the event, click here. Additional information about Jim and this Round Table Event can be found here. Follow-up comments from this event can be found here. Read more > >

Mark Evans of Indiana University will lead our next roundtable discussion, Wednesday March 3rd, 11am ET).  Here is the abstract from his recent paper, written with Leslie Hodder and Pat Hopkins, exploring fair value in commercial banks: For a sample of commercial banks during 1994–2008, we find that accumulated fair value adjustments for investment securities are [...] Read more > >

The SEC essentially punted today on the decision to adopt IFRS in the U.S.  Acknowledging that the SEC is in the same position they were in November 2008 (when the proposed roadmap was originally issued), Mary Schapiro said the SEC hopes to be in a position by 2011 to make this decision. One of the [...] Read more > >

You may have noticed that we can now directly embed videos in posts. Thanks to our great web development team for making that happen! Over the next few weeks I’ll be posting videos of previous Round Table discussions. We hope this will make the archived discussions more accessible to readers. Read more > >

A big thanks to Naomi and Shayne for their comments today. It was a great Round Table. Thanks to everyone who participated as well. We welcome any comments or follow-up questions regarding today’s Round Table topic. Read more > >

The February 23rd (4pm ET) Roundtable will feature a discussion of Emissions Trading Schemes, led by University of Colorado research Naomi Soderstrom, along with insights from the Assistant Project Manager on the FASB's Emission Trading Schemes project, Shayne Kuhaneck. Click here for details on the session. * UPDATE: The archived video of this Round [...] Read more > >

The February 23rd Roundtable will feature a discussion of Emissions Trading Schemes, led by University of Colorado research Naomi Soderstrom, along with insights from the Assistant Project Manager on the FASB’s Emission Trading Schemes project, Shayne Kuhaneck. Many accountants have only passing familiarity with Emissions Trading Schemes.  As the FASB project page describes, Emission trading schemes to [...] Read more > >

If you weren’t there for yesterday’s roundtable with Aaron Beam & Weston Smith, I strongly urge you to view the archived copy of it.  I was fascinated by their rendition of the Health South fraud (both CFO’s there).  How many journal entries do you think it took each quarter to manage the books.  You’ll be [...] Read more > >

A recent FrontLine episode, called “The Warning”, was about Brooksley Born, who was director of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for some years during the Clinton administration.  The show made a strong case that she tried very hard to warn the financial world up through 1998 that OTC derivatives were a very big risk.  Alan [...] Read more > >

Until you hear otherwise, FASRI Roundtables will take place at a new location.  If you participate via Second Life, click this link to be taken directly to the new location.  If you watch via the web, there is no change:  the page is still here.  This change is effective today, for Aaron Beam’s talk. Read more > >