实证会计理论.ppt

Positive Accounting Theory:A Ten Year Perspective
Ross L. Watts and Jerold L. Zimmerman
THE ACCOUNTING REVIEW
8/6/2018
1
ABSTRACT
This paper reviews and critiques the positive accounting literature following publication of Watts and Zimmerman (1978, 1979).
The 1978 paper helped generate the positive accounting literature which offers an explanation of accounting practice, suggests the importance of contracting costs, and has led to the discovery of some previously unknown empirical regularities.
The 1979 paper produced a methodological debate that has not been very productive.
ABSTRACT
This paper attempts to remove mon misconceptions about methodology that surfaced in the debate. It also suggests ways to improve positive research in accounting choice.
The most important of these improvements is tighter links between the theory and the empirical tests.
A second suggested improvement is the development of models that recognize the endogeneity among the variables in the regressions.
A third improvement is reduction in measurement errors in both the dependent and independent variables in the regressions.
Structure
I. Evolution and State of Positive Accounting Theory
II. Criticisms of Positive Accounting Research
III. Summary and Conclusions
I. Evolution and State of Positive Accounting Theory
Evolution
Contemporaneous Positive Accounting Theory
Evidence on the Theory
I. Evolution and State of Positive Accounting Theory
Evolution
Modern positive accounting research began flourishing in the 1960s when Ball and Brown (1968), Beaver (1968). and others introduced empirical finance methods to financial accounting. The subsequent literature adopted the assumption that accounting numbers supply information for security market investment decisions and used this "information perspective" to investigate the relation between accounting numbers and stock prices.
The "information perspective" has not provided hypotheses to explain why entire industrie