Research, while inconclusive, has shown that earnings are manipulated downward prior to a management buyout. What is the logic of this and why do management buyouts present a difficult agency theory problem?
> How do objectives differ from postulates?
> 1. Agency theory takes the view that the corporation is the locus or nexus of many competing and conflicting interests. List as many of these conflicting groups as you can and discuss in detail the nature of their conflicts with other groups. 2. Using th
> 1. Presented in the exhibit for Case 1 (see text) is a graph of accounting income, cash flows from operations, and working capital flows from operations for W. T. Grant Company, a retailer that filed for bankruptcy in 1976. As late as 1973, the company’s
> 1. Discuss as many of the potential trade-offs among the qualities mentioned in SFAC No. 8 as you can and give either a general or a concrete example of each one. 2. Analyze three accounting standards promulgated by the FASB and show how economic consequ
> In 2003, South Africa was the first country to adopt IFRS with fair value accounting. The country does not allow for differential accounting treatment depending on the size of enterprise. What type of response do you expect from this implementation?
> Describe the incentives that might motivate income smoothing, and the ways it could be done.
> The comingling of legal and contingent liabilities exists under current GAAP accounting. Discuss potential problems this creates and propose alternatives to address them.
> Since the FASB makes the standards that are used by business and industry, they make accounting theory. Comment on this statement.
> Do you think that changes brought about in accounting standards by failures of publicly traded companies such as Enron should be classified under political factors or economic decisions? Support your position.
> What type of measurement is the measurement of objectivity in Equation (1.1): nominal, ordinal, interval, or ratio scale?
> Why do the value choices (entry value, exit value, and historical cost) fall within the domain of accounting theory?
> The Trueblood Committee Report advocated the use of financial forecasts. Why do you think that adoption of this suggestion has been very unenthusiastically received by preparers and auditors?
> How has the definition of accounting been modified in recent years?
> The statement of Herbert Miller (footnote 33) is closest to which theoretical approach delineated in SATTA?
> If a division manager of a firm were fired due to poor operating results, would this be an example of stewardship?
> What is the relationship between “stewardship” and “accountability”? Discuss.
> As a potential investor, what do you feel would be the most useful attribute of measurement for each of the following: inventories held for sale, inventories held for production, and long term debt? Would your answer differ if you were a potential lender
> Why would “fairness” in financial reporting be difficult to implement?
> Why is comprehensive income an application of proprietary theory?
> Why is it difficult to evaluate the regulation question?
> How do protective and informative disclosures differ?
> Multiple approaches have been advocated concerning the definition of accounting elements and the relationship between the balance sheet and income statement. What are these approaches and how do they differ?
> Why is there no matching problem for periodic costs, and what are some examples?
> An individual who was appraising accounting education had the following premises (assumptions): • Accounting professors used to do more consulting with accounting practitioners than they do today. • Accounting professors have become more interested in re
> What is the efficient-markets hypothesis?
> The limitation of the accounting classification system depicted in Exhibit 11-1 was referred to throughout the chapter. What is meant by this? Give some examples. Why is the accounting classification system the foundation of the accounting discipline?
> Why is it difficult to determine the historical acquisition cost of self constructed assets? Do definitions of accounting elements and general principles of recognition and measurement resolve the controversy over full absorption costing and variable cos
> What is the purpose of balance sheet classification? How useful is the information produced from a classified balance sheet? What are some alternative classification systems that could be used?
> When dealing with earnings per share, why is less really more with SFAS No. 128?
> If a separate statement of comprehensive income is presented, do all elements of comprehensive income appear in this statement?
> Describe how definitions of income, revenues, and expenses have changed in statements issued by successive standard-setting bodies.
> How does the freedom from bias mentioned in ASOBAT compare to the quality of neutrality mentioned in SFAC No. 8?
> How does earnings as discussed in SFAC No. 5 differ from net income?
> Are simple transactions really examples of rigid uniformity? Why or why not?
> Does the ability to swiftly-and at no cost-download music files convert this music from a private good to a public good?
> What is due process in financial accounting standard-setting?
> Why do you think that operating ratios (return-on-assets) are more sensitive to the combined effect of immateriality items than would be the case with solvency ratios (debt-to-equity and current ratios)?
> Do you see any inconsistency between the present value of assets and liabilities in SFAC No. 7 since the latter is based on a firm-specific discount rate and the former does not use a firm-specific rate? Discuss.
> Why have mutually unperformed executory contracts traditionally been excluded from financial statements? Can this practice be justified in terms of asset and liability definitions? How relevant is this approach for professional sports franchises?
> Do you see any inconsistency in SFAC No. 1, which sees financial statements as general purpose but geared primarily toward investors and creditors?
> Discuss the bright line that does or does not distinguish debt and equity classifications.
> Would changing the asset definition in the conceptual framework to one concerned with property rights have any other ramifications? Discuss.
> Four postulates (going concern, time period, accounting entity, and monetary unit) were discussed as part of the basic concepts underlying historical costing. Can any of the principles discussed under the same general category be deduced or logically der
> Horngren (1973) argues that accounting policies are a social decision and a matter of public interest. Evaluate this statement.
> What does harmonization of accounting standards mean?
> Why does segment disclosure in SFAS No. 131 represent a potential improvement over segment disclosure in SFAS No. 14?
> Why does it make sense to define materiality from the user’s perspective?
> Of the following decision-model advocates discussed in the chapter (Chambers Sterling, Solomons, Bell, and Ijiri), which one stands out as most unlike the others?
> Do you think that disclosures of smaller firms have more information content than disclosures for larger firms?
> What is clean surplus accounting? What is its role in linking dividends and abnormal earnings?
> Do you agree that it is not necessary to provide information for undiversified investors? Discuss.
> How did the APB pave the way for the FASB?
> How does EVA differ from economic profit?
> What is the weakness of Grady’s approach in arriving at principles in ARS 7?
> Who are creditors?
> What is an event study?
> How does conventional retained earnings differ from entity equity under the Anthony conception of the entity theory?
> Accounting earnings are useful in predicting one-year ahead cash flows. Is this sufficient? Why or why not?
> Verifiability is part of reliability in SFAC No. 2, but is now an enhancing qualitative characteristic in SFAC No. 8. What effect does this reclassification have on the importance of verifiability in the framework?
> Why might the distinction between revenues and gains, and between expenses and losses, be important to report yet unimportant as to how they are reported?
> What inconsistencies does Merino see in the proprietary theory at the turn of the twentieth century before the advent of entity theory?
> What is the relationship between the National Commission on Fraudulent Financial Reporting and Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995?
> Why do you think the term “deprival value” was used to name a specific type of replacement cost?
> Why do you think that security prices are impacted more by “bad news” than “good news”?
> How do the imperative postulates (group C) differ from the other two categories of postulates?
> A study (discussed in the chapter) found a heavier emphasis placed on relevance rather than reliability in disclosure standards by the FASB. Why do you think this is the case?
> Postulates are supposed to be tight enough to prevent conflicting conclusions being deduced from them. Is this the case with ARS 1?
> Why is earnings-per-share calculation an example of the residual equity of a firm being broader than merely its current common shareholders?
> Why does post-earnings-announcement drift challenge the efficient-markets hypothesis?
> The “uncertainty principle” of the famous physicist, Werner Heisenberg, states that physical phenomena cannot be precisely measured because the very act of measuring affects the phenomenon being measured. Which of the directions of accounting research di
> There has been a trend toward rigid uniformity in the format of the income statement. Explain how and why this has occurred.
> What is the relationship between public goods and free riders? Is accounting a public good?
> How do market-level and individual decision-maker analyses complement one another in studying the usefulness of accounting information to investors and creditors?
> Why is it argued that capital market research cannot determine the optimality of accounting policies even for the limited investor-creditor group?
> What is the difference between “accounting theory” and “accounting research?
> What is the difference between joint and severable liability and proportionate liability?
> The social goals underlying accounting regulation are information symmetry and comparability. Why are these goals complementary?
> Why does codification presume a democratic setting?
> What is the relationship among scientific method, accounting research, and accounting policy making?
> Why, in practical terms, is it impossible to separate deductive and inductive approaches to theoretical reasoning?
> In SFAS No. 154, changes in accounting principle result in a restatement, whereas under APB Opinion No. 20, a change in accounting principle is handled in a pro forma manner. How does a restatement differ from a pro forma presentation?
> What advantages do you see for classifying interest expense as an investing cash flow rather than an operating cash flow? What is the advantage of classifying it as an operating cash flow? What is the advantage of classifying it as a financing cash flow?
> Why are convertible bonds and convertible preferred stock not examples of embedded derivatives?
> Should incentive and nonqualified stock options be treated the same on the financials?
> Evaluate the attempt by the FASB to separate stock options from stock appreciation rights that are payable in cash?
> Distinguish between the discrete and integral views of quarterly information disclosure.
> Why are interest rate swaps a zero sum game?
> Which factor discussed under future events is the most important and why?
> Why are future events so important to the issue of revenue and expense measurement?
> Why is the handling of troubled debt restructuring under SFAS No. 114 illogical?
> Is earnings per share an example of finite or rigid uniformity?
> Why does the concept of market efficiency (with respect to information) have no necessary relation to the quality of accounting information? Why is this distinction important with respect to accounting policy making?
> Numerous attributes are measured in the balance sheet. What are the different attributes? Why is this practice criticized?
> What does it mean to classify a cash flow according to the basic nature or function of the event as opposed to the ultimate purpose of the transaction? Which method do you prefer?
> What do research findings indicate concerning the relevance of cash and funds flow data?
> Why is the SCF called a derivative statement?
> What is the purpose of reporting noncash items in the SCF?
> How does the source/use classification reflect the structure of double-entry accounting?
> Why is the three-way classification system in the SCF more informative than the two way source/use classification?
> What attribute is being measured in the SCF and how well is representational faithfulness achieved? Compare this to when funds are defined as working capital.
