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Discussion of “Evidence on the Usefulness of Capital Expenditures as an Alternative Measure of Depreciation”

Discussion of “Evidence on the Usefulness of Capital Expenditures as an Alternative Measure of... 198 JEFFERY ABARBANELL race between capital expenditures and depreciation in this study, however, lacks theoretical or empirical foundation, which somewhat limits its appeal from a research perspective. One reason for comparing the value relevance of depreciation and capital expenditures is to assess the possibility that investors functionally fixate on one accounting measure and ignore information in another. However, the methodological approach adopted in the paper assumes that market prices are efficient. This, in turn, presupposes that investors do not run horse races between readily observable variables that potentially contain orthogonal infor- mation. Furthermore, because adjusted earnings is not a common performance evaluation measure, the motivation for a horse race when prices are efficient is not easily finessed with an appeal to contracting theory (see, for instance, Dechow, 1994). Another possible reason for comparing the informativeness of depreciation and capital expenditures is to provide indirect support for altering the accounting treatment of certain items under current GAAP rules. However, it would seem that an argument for or against allowing accounting discretion should be made on a case by case basis, using more di- rect testing methods than those employed here (see Lev and Sougiannis, (1996), which examines whether stock prices http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Review of Accounting Studies Springer Journals

Discussion of “Evidence on the Usefulness of Capital Expenditures as an Alternative Measure of Depreciation”

Review of Accounting Studies , Volume 4 (4) – Sep 30, 2004

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References (9)

Publisher
Springer Journals
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 by Kluwer Academic Publishers
Subject
Business and Management; Accounting/Auditing; Corporate Finance; Public Finance
ISSN
1380-6653
eISSN
1573-7136
DOI
10.1023/A:1009677916516
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

198 JEFFERY ABARBANELL race between capital expenditures and depreciation in this study, however, lacks theoretical or empirical foundation, which somewhat limits its appeal from a research perspective. One reason for comparing the value relevance of depreciation and capital expenditures is to assess the possibility that investors functionally fixate on one accounting measure and ignore information in another. However, the methodological approach adopted in the paper assumes that market prices are efficient. This, in turn, presupposes that investors do not run horse races between readily observable variables that potentially contain orthogonal infor- mation. Furthermore, because adjusted earnings is not a common performance evaluation measure, the motivation for a horse race when prices are efficient is not easily finessed with an appeal to contracting theory (see, for instance, Dechow, 1994). Another possible reason for comparing the informativeness of depreciation and capital expenditures is to provide indirect support for altering the accounting treatment of certain items under current GAAP rules. However, it would seem that an argument for or against allowing accounting discretion should be made on a case by case basis, using more di- rect testing methods than those employed here (see Lev and Sougiannis, (1996), which examines whether stock prices

Journal

Review of Accounting StudiesSpringer Journals

Published: Sep 30, 2004

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