Towards an understanding of the role of standard setters in standard setting

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Allen, Abigail; Ramanna, Karthik
• 署名单位: Harvard University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING & ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0165-4101
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jacceco.2012.05.003
• 发表日期: 2013
• 关键词: revolving-door; Managers; ideology; capture; style

摘要

We investigate the effect of standard setters in standard setting. We examine how certain professional and political characteristics of FASB members and SEC commissioners predict the accounting reliability and relevance of proposed standards. Notably, we find FASB members with backgrounds in financial services are more likely to propose standards that decrease reliability and increase relevance, partly due to their tendency to propose fair-value methods. We find opposite results for FASB members affiliated with the Democratic Party, although only when excluding financial-services background as an independent variable. Jackknife procedures show that results are robust to omitting any individual standard setter. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.