How can Empirical Research Contribute to Accounting Standards Setting?

通过2006年和2007年的研究，我可以暂时得出以下结论：从本质上讲，实证研究并不预测未来的前景，而是解释过去的事实。然而，会计准则制定者有必要认识到目前的情况，并根据基于经验数据的过去事实预测未来的发展。这是因为规范通常是在人们承认某些事情是现实之后构建的，但这种创造出来的现实有时是错误的，因为它依赖于个人的价值判断。虽然实证研究和规范研究通常是相互假设的，但在会计准则方面，它们的关系并不是那么简单。在一些案例中，会计准则的制定完全忽视了大量实证研究的结果。也有一些案例是基于一些原始的实证研究报告来制定会计准则的。前者的典型案例是IASB禁止披露净收入，尽管大多数实证研究结果表明净收入对投资者决策具有价值相关性。后者的一个典型案例是美国的研发投资会计准则，该准则要求企业将所有研发投资计入成本，而这一标准几乎没有基于经验证据。实证研究和规范研究在现实中并不相互假定：其中一个的权重更大，或者根据特殊利益或在某些情况下主席的个人信仰被选为标准的基本原理。此外，主张对会计准则制定提出意见的利益相关者或代理人往往会提出对他们有利的有偏见的实证研究结果：由于抽样和分析方法的差异，实证研究的结果往往不同。

Through my research during the years 2006 and 2007, I have been able to provisionally conclude the following: Intrinsically, empirical research does not foresee future prospects but only explains past facts. However, it is necessary for accounting standards setters to recognize the current situation and to forecast future developments based on past facts that are based on empirical data. This is because norms are usually constructed after people acknowledge something to be a reality, but this created reality is sometimes wrong because it is dependent on individual value judgments. Although empirical research and normative research are generally assumed each other, their relationship where accounting standards are concerned is not so simple. There have been cases in which accounting standards have been set that completely ignored the results of large amounts of empirical research. There have also been cases in which accounting standards have been set based on a few primitive empirical research reports. A typical case of the former was when the IASB prohibited the disclosure of net income, despite the fact that most empirical research results indicated a value relevance of net income for investor decision making. A typical case of the latter was the accounting standards for R&D investment in the US, which required companies to expense all R&D investment, a standard based on very little empirical evidence. Empirical and normative research are not assumed to be each other in actuality: One of them is weighed more heavily or is chosen for use as the rationale for a standard depending on special interests or in some cases the chairperson's personal belief. Moreover, interested persons or agents who advocate an opinion towards accounting standards setting often present biased results of empirical study that are advantageous to them: The results of empirical research studies are often different due to differences in sampling and analytical methods.