The litigation cost rule relates to which of the two parties in a civil lawsuit has to pay the legal costs. In those countries where the American system applies, each has to pay their own legal costs. In most other countries, the British system applies and the loser pays all the legal costs. By means of a single person decision-theoretic model, I examine the effects of this on auditing and fina...

Auditors face the difficult task of detecting companies that issue manipulated financial statements. In recent years, machine learning methods have provided a feasible solution to this task. This study develops support vector machine (SVM) models using published South African financial data. The input vectors are comprised of ratios derived from financial statements. The three SVM models are co...

.01 This section addresses the auditor's responsibility to design and implement responses to the risks of material misstatement identified and assessed by the auditor in accordance with section 315,Understanding the Entity and Its Environment and Assessing the Risks of Material Misstatement, and to evaluate the audit evidence obtained in an audit of financial statements. Section 700, Forming an...

The effects of a financial transaction tax (FTT) are scientifically disputed, as seemingly small details of its implementation may matter a lot. In this article, we provide experimental evidence on the different effects of an FTT, depending on whether it is implemented as a tax on markets, on residents, or a combination of both. We find that a tax on markets has negative effects on volatility a...

We develop a model of asset trading with financial leverage in an economy with a continuum of investors. The investors are assumed to have diverse and rational beliefs in the sense of being compatible with observed data. We show that a reduction in the margin requirement may cause the stock price to rise in the current period because it increases the demand of optimistic investors through a “le...

If your employee benefit plan has more than 100 participants, chances are you've had to work your way through the audited financial statements you're required to include with your Form 5500 filing. These statements contain a wealth of information about the financial health of your plan, and understanding them is an important fiduciary responsibility. To strengthen your grasp of financial statem...

Did fair value accounting play a role in the current financial crisis? This appendix explores the issue. Fair value accounting implies that assets and liabilities get measured and reflected on a firm`s financial statements at their market value, or close substitutes. Extensive academic research done over the past 20 years shows that financial statements that reflect the market values of assets ...