Financial Accounting Standards Research Initiative

One of the frequent criticisms the revenue recognition project has received in the past few years is that the proposed new standard would change revenue recognition in areas that do not seem to pose any problems today. One example of that is the construction industry, where the proposed new standard has the potential to change [...] Read more > >

I know all my recent posts seem to be arising from my PhD seminar.  But hey, putting together materials for an introductory seminar makes one think about some basic research issues. One paper I assign is the Watts and Zimmerman excuses paper.  In case you are unfamiliar with the paper, I view it as presenting a [...] Read more > >

I am coming to the party late on this one.  Back in October 2009, Rob initiated several posts related to the Kothari, Ramanna and Skinner paper that he saw presented at last year’s JAE conference.  I read the paper with a more critical eye recently in preparing for an introductory PhD seminar.  While it did [...] Read more > >

Isn’t disclosure always a good thing?  Isn’t it always better to have audited financial statements than not (ignoring the cost of the audit itself)? Wouldn’t it be particularly important to audit a large bank?  How about one that holds our entire financial system in its hands…such as the Federal Reserve Bank? I was very surprised to [...] Read more > >

This is worth a read: On accountants: The accountants utterly failed us. And by the way, there’s practically no sign of any intelligent reversal of the failure of that profession. I have yet to meet many accountants who are the least bit ashamed for their contribution to our recent troubles. But it [...] Read more > >

At 4pm Eastern time on Wednesday, 10/6/2010, we will have our second roundtable for this academic year. Please join us! See the new FASRI Roundtables WebPage describing how to use VenueGen, our new platform from which you can join the Roundtable discussion. Danielle Zeyher, FASB Project Manager, will join us to discuss the IASB-FASB Leases Project. This project has [...] Read more > >

You can listen to the conversation with FASB’s Nick Capiello here. Read more > >

One important topic of yesterday’s very interesting roundtable with Nick Cappiello is the staff draft proposal to include an “operating-finance” section in the balance sheet. The staff apparently views some transactions to have characteristics of both operations and financing of those operations. Ideally, I guess most users would like a clear distinction between operating items and items [...] Read more > >

Our next FASRI roundtable is with Danielle Zeyher, manager of the FASB-IASB leases project.  Please mark your calendars for 4pm Eastern time on Wednesday October 6th.  More information will follow as we approach the time of the session. Read more > >

In case you missed the first roundtable of the semester, we will have a recording available soon.  Meanwhile, you can access the slides for the session HERE.  And, Nick Cappiello, the presenter, has graciously provied his contact information at ntcappiello@fasb.org in case anyone has questions about the slides, the topic, or the presentation and discussion. Thank [...] Read more > >