A study of the market reaction to the formulation of SFAS no. 14

Abstract

There is a growing recognition that the setting of financial accounting standards which governs what businesses must report and how these companies must describe their economic operations needs to be viewed more broadly than simply from a technical accounting perspective. Also, the current climate of public opinion seems to reflect a growing disenchantment with the policy-making procedures of the profession. The objective of this study was to investigate the market reaction to the formulation process used by FASB in developing an accounting standard. This process includes the following steps: technical agenda, discussion memorandum, public hearing, exposure draft, and final statement. SFAS No. 14 was selected for study because of its important impact on a major accounting issue, the reporting requirements of diversified companies. To accomplish third objective, the "market model" was used with the residuals being averaged over cross-sectional samples of heterogeneous companies. Residuals were analyzed for a sixty day period centered on the five significant formulation dates in the development of SFAS No. 14. The basic research question was whether the development of SFAS No. 14 provided any new or useful information to the market, and if so, when this information was acted upon in the market by capital agents. After computing the results and applying the statistical tests, the results were mixed. The implications of these finding suggest that there is no conclusive evidence that the market reacted to the formulation process used by the FASB as reflected in the formulation of SFAS No. 14.