A Comparison of Generally Accepted Accounting Practice and Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 33 Income Measurement

Abstract

A study was undertaken to determine whether or not the special disclosures of the effects of specific price changes as required by SFAS No. 33 provided any information which was substantially different from the information contained in financial statements prepared in accordance with GAAP. No evaluation was made of the usefulness of the information provided by the disclosures required by SFAS No. 33. Three measures of financial performance were selected and calculated using both methods for twenty oil and gas firms and thirty-six other firms in six selected industries. Then the firms were ranked according to their performance under GAAP and under SFAS No. 33, and the rankings were compared. The results indicated that there was very little additional information provided by the SFAS No. 33 data for comparisons across all industries. There was no or very little additional information provided in intra-industry comparisons with the exceptions of the oil and gas, steel, and natural gas industries.