Discussion of “The effect of alternative accounting measurement bases on investors’ assessments of managers’ stewardship”

Abstract

Anderson, Brown, Hodder, and Hopkins (ABHH, in press) provide experimental evidence that investors are better able to assess management stewardship and firm value when financial statements highlight fair-value information rather than amortized-cost information. We focus our discussion on five methodological choices that the authors make. We consider how those choices affect the generality of ABHH’s results, consider an alternative theoretical explanation for those results, and suggest opportunities for future research that build on ABHH’s work.