When companies suffer a dramatic even catastrophic drop in their share price, it is the investors who lose their shirts and employees their jobs. But often, a company's published accounts offer clues to impending disaster, providing you know where to look.

Through the forensic examination of more than 20 recent stock market disasters, Tim Steer reveals how companies hide or disguise worrying facts about the robustness of their business. In his lively style, he looks at the themes that underlie the ways companies hide the truth and he stresses that in an assessment of a company's accounts, investors should always bear in mind that the only fact is cash; everything else - profit, assets, etc - is a matter of opinion. Full of invaluable lessons for investors, the book concludes with some trenchant observations on what is wrong in the worlds of investment, audit and financial regulation, and what changes should be introduced.

If accounting is a means of communicating information for decision-making, then any attempt to define accounting must draw upon scholarly knowledge of communication and decision-making. This means understanding accounting as a professional jargon, a language, and also as a social and psychological object that influences individual and collective behavior. Only when all of these aspects are accounted for can we hope to achieve a truly descriptive, rather than normative, accounting theory that will stand up to the rigors of academic inquiry. Here Gaetan Breton provides a comprehensive overview of what accounting really is, not just what it is presumed to be for the purposes of ordinary, day-to-day, practicality-oriented accounting courses. Drawing upon frameworks employed in the human sciences-including those used in sociology, psychology, the communication sciences, and decision theories-Breton builds a multi-faceted theory of accounting. He explains why it should be conceived as a fundamentally social activity, one that puts preparers of financial statements in contact with users-with the state, shareholders, stakeholders, and citizens-in order to help them make economic decisions based on financial information. It is from this position that he analyzes both the behavior of preparers of financial statements (who only relate financial situations) and the behavior of users (in their own analysis, understanding, and decisions). The result is a groundbreaking move towards the first science of accounting widely acceptable within academic circles. For the fundamental questions it poses to the very heart of accounting studies, this book is a must-read for researchers and practitioners as well as teachers and undergraduate students of accounting.

Advances in Accounting Behavioral Research promotes research across all areas of accounting, incorporating theory from, and contributing knowledge to, the fields of applied psychology, sociology, management science, ethics and economics. Focusing on research that examines both individual and organizational behavior relative to accounting, the series provides a unique opportunity for the exchange of peer reviewed knowledge across all areas of accounting behavioral research and the development, discussion and expansion of theories from psychology, sociology and related disciplines. Advances in Accounting Behavioral Research encourages research that tests theory, explains theory, and develops theory that can be applied to better understand accounting domains. Accordingly, reviews of established theory and how that theory has and could be used in accounting are also strongly encouraged. Coverage includes, but is not restricted to: Individual judgement/decision making Group decision making Organizational behavior Inter-organizational relationships Technology integration Strategic management/organizational theory Theory development Theory review This volume includes chapters on emerging theory, methods, and applications towards behavioral research in accounting and audit.

Auditing has hit the headlines over recent years, and for all the wrong reasons, and in today's environment, the result of negligent auditing can be serious resulting in sizeable fines and even withdrawal of audit registration which can be costly in terms of fee income. Frequently Asked Questions in International Standards on Auditing presents the relevant standards in a concise and jargon-free way, enabling auditors to appreciate the reasoning behind the standards and undertake audit work effectively. This book focuses on the main areas of the auditing standards and also addresses some key areas where audit firms are failing and which have been flagged up by audit regulators. The FAQs cover the main parts of each standard, and each question will be answered in a practical context, with worked examples showing how the standards are applied in real situations.

"It's hard to talk clearly about investing and make sense to ordinary readers at the same time. Katsenelson gives a lucid explanation of today's markets with sound advice about how to make money while avoiding the traps that the market sets for exuberant bulls and frightened bears alike."
-- Thomas G. Donlan, Barron's

"A thoroughly enjoyable read. Provides a clear framework for equity investing in today's 'sideways' and volatile markets useful to everyone. Clear thinking and clear writing are not often paired - well done "
-- Dick Weil, CEO, Janus Capital Group

"The bible for how to invest in the most tumultuous financial market environment since the Great Depression. A true guidebook for how to build wealth prudently."
-- David Rosenberg, Chief Economist & Strategist, Gluskin Sheff + Associates Inc.

"A wonderful, grounded read for new and seasoned investors alike, Katsenelson explains in plain English why volatility and sideways markets are a stock picker's best friend."
-- The Motley Fool, www.Fool.com

Praise for Active Value Investing

"This book reads like a conversation with Vitaliy: deep, insightful, inquisitive, and civilized."
-- Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan

"Thoroughly enjoyable . . for the thoughtful and often entertaining way in which it is delivered. . . Katsenelson takes his reader step by step into the mind of the value investor by relating, in a fictional addendum to Fiddler on the Roof, the story of Tevye's purchase of Golde, the cow. He also describes his own big-time gambling evening (he was willing to lose a maximum of $40) and that of a half-drunken, rowdy fellow blackjack player to stress the importance of process. He then moves on to the fundamental principles of active value investing. What differentiates this book from so many others on value investing is that it describes, sometimes through the use of case studies, the thinking of a value investor. Not just his models or his metrics but his assessments. Katsenelson is an empiricist who weighs facts, looks for contraindications, and makes decisions. He makes value investing come alive. This may be a little book, but it's packed with insights for both novices and experienced investors. And it is a delight to read."
--Seeking Alpha

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BPP Learning Media is the AIA s official publisher and our Study Texts are endorsed by AIA examiners.

The bestselling and astonishingly simple guide to the fundamental principles of accounting, written specifically for those without a financial background. Simple, easily absorbed and clearly explained, this book will guide you through all the major accounting concepts. You will learn how to master company accounts, understand balance sheets, profit and loss accounts and cash flow systems and how to analyse and monitor your company's financial performance.

A guide to all the regulatory reports financial institutions are required to file. Topics covered include forms and reports for securities activities, anti-boycott rules, the Bank Secrecy Act and the Suspicious Activities Report.

This book investigates the going-concern principle in the non-financial disclosure by companies in the international scenario proposing concepts and challenges to come. Following the main accounting literature, requirements and regulations, this book proposes the current state of the art in the non-financial disclosure, collecting main mandatory and voluntary frameworks and standards (e.g. European Directive 2014/95/UE on non-financial information, Global Reporting Initiative, International Integrated Reporting Council, Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, Climate Disclosure Standard Board, Carbon Disclosure Project, AA1000). This is a useful proposition for the investigation of the presence versus absence of the going concern in the sustainability and non-financial reports and disclosure by companies. Through a qualitative methodology, this book is intended to show the incidence of the going-concern in the non-financial disclosure and to what content and meaning it is refereed. Several issues and characteristics of information provided to stakeholders are drafted.

This book discusses the theory, methods, and applications of flow of funds analysis. The book integrates the basic principles of economic statistics, financial accounts, international finance, econometric models, and financial network analysis, providing a systematic and comprehensive introduction to the interconnection between these research fields. It thus provides the reader with the intellectual groundwork indispensable for understanding the workings and interactions of today's globalized financial markets. The main focus of the book is how to observe the flow of funds in macroeconomics, how to measure the global flow of funds (GFF), and how to use GFF data to carry out an analysis. Based on the statistical framework for measuring GFF under the System of National Accounts, the book identifies the systematic relationship of financial linkages among economic sectors and with the rest of the world while integrating data sources that include stock data, geographically broken down by country-region, and selected financial instruments. It sets out the GFF concept and constructs a GFF matrix (metadata) on a from-whom-to-whom basis within a country-by-country pattern. Lastly, an established GFF matrix table is used to conduct an empirical study including an econometric model and financial network analysis.

Volume 25 features eight articles. In the lead article, Savannah Guo, Sabrina Chi, and Kirsten Cook examine short selling as one external determinant of corporate tax avoidance and find that short interest is negatively associated with subsequent tax-avoidance levels and this effect is incremental to other factors identified by prior research. Next, Mark Bauman and Cathalene Rogers Bowler examine the effect of FIN48 on earnings management activity, by focusing on changes in the deferred tax asset valuation allowance. In the third article, Anthony Billings, Cheol Lee, and Jaegul Lee study whether the lowering of dividend taxes as part of the U.S. Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 resulted in an increase in dividend payouts at the expense of R&D spending. The fourth article by Brian Dowis and Ted Englebrecht examines reasonable compensation in closely-held corporations and the impact of gender, political affiliation, and family makeup on decisions made in the U.S. Tax Court. Then, a practice-related study by Sonja Pippin, Jeffrey Wong, and Richard Mason reports on a survey of Americans living abroad on the impact of tax rules explicitly designed for these individuals. They find that Americans living abroad experience the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act as negatively impacting their lives. The next three articles in this volume have an international focus. Zakir Akhand investigates the effects of the corporate sector on the effectiveness of selected tax compliance instruments in the context of large Bangladesh corporate taxpayers. K-Rine Chong and Murugesh Arunachalam examine the determinants of enforced tax compliance behaviour of Malaysian citizens with trust in the tax agency assumed to be a mediating variable. Lastly, Bitzenis and Vasileios investigate the effect of the economic downturn in Greece on the factors determining the level of tax morale through primary data from a European Union funded research project on the Greek shadow economy.

Series Information:
New Works in Accounting History

Accountancy encompasses much more than is normally considered, especially from a social responsibility point of view. This book brings fresh ideas and an innovative approach to accountancy theory and practice as well as critical views about professional thinking in accountancy. The reader will find advanced approaches regarding usiness objectives with social responsibility principles. A new role of accountancy is founded for a sustainable society. The responsibility of individuals is emphasized through behavioural analysis. The book has an interdisciplinary character and will be interesting for students, doctoral students, academics and practitioners as well. The real thread of the book is the risk and responses to the feelings of risk in organizations and also of individuals. On this basis a new role and a new structure of accountancy is offered.

For courses in Abnormal Psychology A comprehensive overview of abnormal psychology, with DSM-5 coverage throughout. Abnormal Psychology provides a comprehensive and engaging introduction to the primary psychological disorders studied within the discipline. Maintaining a focus on the individuals at the heart of the study of abnormal psychology, authors Jill Hooley, Matthew Nock, and James Butcher employ a bio-psychosocial approach that helps students achieve an understanding of the holistic context in which abnormalities of behaviour occur. The 18th Edition reflects the newest and most relevant research findings, presented in ways designed to be as engaging as possible to the next generation of students.

This book focuses on the impact of the disclosure of non-financial risk, which could be seen as the most relevant non-financial information (NFI), in the aftermath of the 2014/95/EU Directive. The author analyses whether the switch from voluntary to mandatory NFI enhance the quality of disclosed NF risk-related information and the usefulness of the risk disclosure for investors. The book focuses specifically on the mandatory disclosure of non-financial (NF) risks as required by the EU Directive for listed Italian companies, investigating both the state of art of its disclosure and its usefulness for investors. In doing so, the book contributes to fill two relevant gaps in risk literature. The first research gap is related to the insufficient investigation of the disclosure of NF risks. Companies mandated to disclose risk-related information focused mainly on financial risks, in spite of the width of the definition of risk, conceived as information about any opportunity, danger, threat, or exposure that has or could impact the company in the future. The second gap is that empirical evidence about the effects of corporate risk disclosures is still limited, and the potential benefits of the disclosure of information on risks have not been fully explored. In particular, the relationship between risk disclosures and firm value is under researched, as the risk literature mainly focuses on the incentives question, related to the motives for which companies decide to disclose. The research in this book focuses on Italy, a country that provides a unique opportunity to examine the impact of mandatory NF risk disclosure on firm market value, being one of the biggest industrial European countries that had not mandatory legislation for NFI disclosure, and also one of the leading countries in voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting at an international level. It has been carried out in the fiscal year 2017, the first year of the application of the mandatory NF disclosure for obliged Italian listed PIEs. The book contributes both to the measurement literature, as it presents a self-constructed quality NF risks and to the value relevance analysis literature, providing evidence of the usefulness of financial and non-financial risk-related disclosures in the Italian context.

The German subsidiaries of US-American companies are obliged to complete their annual accounts not only according to the German HGB but also according to the US-GAAP and to submit this to the parent company in the USA. Since the US-GAAP regulations differ greatly from those of the HGB, the annual accounts raise a number of questions mainly regarding evaluation and balancing. The author presents here the general principles of the US-American accounting system, as well as the main positions with regard to approach, evaluation and documentation, above all emphasizing the differences in the two nations' ways of balancing. Using numerous case studies he pays particular attention to the special problems of application in practice.

This volume contains exemplary papers that were presented at the 2017 Conference on Performance Measurement and Management Control in Nice, France, by researchers in the field from North America, South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. This book represents a collection of innovative research in management control and performance measurement, and provides a significant contribution to the growing literature in the area. The collection also covers a representative set of topics, research settings, and research methods. The editors hope that this book will stimulate researchers to continue the search for additional understanding of performance measurement and management control, and provide guidance for both academic researchers and managers as they work toward improving organizations.

A comprehensive guide to the accounting and financial reporting principles used by state and local governments As more governmental accounting standards are issued, preparers need clear guidance. The Wiley GAAP for Governments 2020 Interpretation and Application of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles for State and Local Governments guides preparers through the standards and their increasing complexity. This is a comprehensive guide to the accounting and financial reporting principles for state and local governments, as well as other government organizations. It has been written to address the needs of users and serve as a helpful resource. Wiley GAAP for Governments 2020 covers the key developments in governmental GAAP that occurred in 2019. Financial professionals can turn to this reliable reference for detailed information and guidance on implementing newly issued and revised standards. Charts and diagrams encourage enhanced understanding of the information. Practitioners will find that the book offers: Coverage of financial statements for school districts, public authorities, and pension plans Timely information about implementing accounting updates Content that stands as an application guide for practitioners Checklist for preparers to help ensure that all required disclosures are completed This thorough guide can help financial professionals successfully navigate the complexities of the latest governmental accounting standards. It is a practical resource for those who prepare the critical financial statements of government entities.

This book analyzes the impact of Basel Accord in Bangladesh. More specifically, it focuses on the credit risk homogenization under standardized approach of Basel Accord where External Credit Rating Agencies (ECAIs) are allowed to rate the exposures, the potential risk of allowing sub-ordinated debt (Sub-debt) as Tier 2 capital, and multiple bank distress cases as a real-world scenarios. In doing so, the book explores why the ECAIs rating fail to capture the real credit risk of exposure and to what extent sub-debt is reliable as regulatory capital. With that, the book's scope is categorized into three tracts (i) analyzes the ECAIs incentive and sanction issues from institutional economics perspective (ii) discusses the ill-impact of Naive adoption of sub-ordinated debt as regulatory capital and its associated risk on financial system, and (iii) providing readers an empirical illustrations of bank distress when an economy tapped into institutional failures in the above-mentioned tracts (i) and (ii).

The way in which leverage and its expected dynamics impact on firm valuation is very different from what is assumed by the traditional static capital structure framework. Recent work that allows the firm to restructure its debt over time proves to be able to explain much of the observed cross-sectional and time-series variation in leverage, while static capital structure predictions do not. The purpose of this book is to re-characterize the firm's valuation process within a dynamical capital structure environment, by drawing on a vast body of recent and more traditional theoretical insights and empirical findings on firm evaluation, also including asset pricing literature, offering a new setting in which practitioners and researchers are provided with new tools to anticipate changes in capital structure and setting prices for firm's debt and equity accordingly.

This book is aimed at those with responsibilities for audit, risk and control - auditors of course - but also finance directors, audit committee members, project accountants, systems designers and other professionals too. Working under pressure, these people often need to take account of theory and best practice but strike a balance with the practical demands of their workplace. This book's practical emphasis on meeting the ever-changing needs of clients and auditees will benefit a wide audience by helping readers to: c select a suitable, practical sampling approach c appreciate the statistical implications c evaluate the results of audit testing c take account of risk and control evaluation in targeting valuable audit resources. It does this by laying out the principles behind a concept and then grounding them in 'real life' cases for the reader to work through. These are accompanied by suggested solutions which, while not definitive answers, do provide valuable advice and guidance. Finally the range of appendices, including a complete copy of the statement of auditing standards, SAS 430, make this book an essential resource for everyone concerned about modern auditing.

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"A much-needed service for society today. I hope this book reaches information managers in the organization now vulnerable to hacks that are stealing corporate information and even holding it hostage for ransom." - Ronald W. Hull, author, poet, and former professor and university administrator A comprehensive entity security program deploys information asset protection through stratified technological and non-technological controls. Controls are necessary for counteracting threats, opportunities, and vulnerabilities risks in a manner that reduces potential adverse effects to defined, acceptable levels. This book presents a methodological approach in the context of normative decision theory constructs and concepts with appropriate reference to standards and the respective guidelines. Normative decision theory attempts to establish a rational framework for choosing between alternative courses of action when the outcomes resulting from the selection are uncertain. Through the methodological application, decision theory techniques can provide objectives determination, interaction assessments, performance estimates, and organizational analysis. A normative model prescribes what should exist according to an assumption or rule.

Advances in Management Accounting (AIMA) is a publication of quality applied research in management accounting. The journal's purpose is to publish thought-provoking articles that advance knowledge in the management accounting discipline and are of interest to both academics and practitioners. As one of the premier management accounting research journals, AIMA is well-poised to meet the needs of management accounting scholars. Featured in Volume 30 are articles on: Risk management and internal control: A study of management accounting practice; Properties of performance measurement and management systems used dialogically between parent companies and foreign subsidiaries; CEO turnover and major business restructurings; The effect of informed outside directors on investment efficiency; Proactive strategic responses to corporate sustainability pressures: A sustainability control system framework; On the interplay between strategic performance and managerial accounting.