17 ntangible assets are both large and important. However, current financial statements provide very little information about these assets. Even worse, much of the information that is provided is partial, inconsistent, and confusing, leading to significant costs to companies, to investors, and to society as a whole. Solving this problem will require on-balance-sheet accounting for many of these...

Our paper is a synthesis of the practical achievements of a research programme financed by the Ministry of Education and Research of Romania, focused on auditing by information-based means the financial statements of different business establishments. It is well-known the fact that since the financial auditor is not an employee of the audited company the financialaccounting information is submi...

We investigate the effects of a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) in an order-driven artificial financial market. FTTs are meant to limit short-term speculative behavior by reducing the amount of excess liquidity in the system. To quantify these effects, adjustments in trading strategies and their effects on liquidity need to be taken into account. We model an agentbased continuous double-auction...

After adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) for consolidated financial statements by European-listed companies, a number of European countries still require the use of local standards in the preparation of legal entity financial statements. This study investigates whether this requirement can be explained by a low demand for high-quality financial reporting and an orien...

I review empirical research on the relation between capital markets and financial statements. The principal sources of demand for capital markets research in accounting are fundamental analysis and valuation, tests of market efficiency, and the role of accounting numbers in contracts and the political process. The capital markets research topics of current interest to researchers include tests ...

I revisit the Great Inflation and the Great Moderation for nominal and real variables. I document a dichotomy in the evolution of the cyclical volatility of financial variables since the mid-1980s. While financial price variables are smoother during the Great Moderation, financial quantity measures experience an immoderation. A model with financial frictions and financial shocks allowing for st...

This paper proposes a framework for audited financial reporting that is intended to address major perceived limitations in current quality reporting principles. The paper thus addresses the potential decoupling problem between financial statement audits and what is being audited identified by Power (1997). Using an extended risk model, the framework not only identifies principles of quality fin...

* Group Treasurer, Colonial Limited. 1 The Tripartite Group of Banking, Securities and Insurance Regulators defined a financial conglomerate as “any group of companies under common control whose exclusive or predominant activities consist of providing significant services in at least two different financial sectors (banking, securities, insurance)” (see Tripartite Group of Banking, Securities a...

Using ratings of corporate governance developed by RiskMetrics Group (RMG), formerly Institutional Shareholder Services, we investigate whether relatively poor governance is associated with financial restatement, and whether restatement results in improved governance. We identify 150 firms that restated their 2003 financial statements to correct material error, and we use Compustat to generate ...

The evolution of reporting about employees in the 20th century culminated in the mandatory disclosures of the Companies Act (1985). This paper reports upon a study of the employee reporting practices of FTSE 100 companies that was carried out by examining the year 2000 annual report and accounts. The analysis whilst noting a wide range of practice among these companies, finds that their annual ...