The Non-Neutrality of Reporting Standards

Abstract

The Conceptual Framework offers an approproach to understanding and managing reporting choices and their regulation. Neutrality, in terms of an unrelenting focus on relevance and reliability to the exclusion of particular interests or transaction motives, is a cornerstone of the Framework. We present an inter-generational trading model in which (1) relevance and reliability are well defined, (2) the reliability choice is of first order concern, and (3) the key to managing and regulating this choice is a focus on particular interests. Neutrality, that is, blinds the analysis