英语论文网

1998年9月28日，美国证券交易委员会主席亚瑟莱维特听到了来自金融界的战斗召唤。莱维特在财务报告中要求：“立刻采取一致行动......去保证可信度和透明度”。莱维特在纽约大学的演讲中特别强调了财务报告透明的重要性,同时也阐述了不得不屈服于压力和盈余管理的技巧的情况。莱维特特别强调了五条最热门的让公司顺利盈利的技巧。其次，莱维特概述了一个分为八部分的旨在恢复在美国市场的财务报告完整性的行动计划。财务报告的基本目标是什么？一般的公认会计准则认为是：为大众提供准确的信息和决策，与合适的知识渊博的用户进行金融信息交流。最重要的是，这是用户关于投资者和债权人最广泛的决策信息来源。

Accounting
On September 28, 1998, Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Arthur Levitt sounded the call to arms in the financial community. Levitt asked for, 'immediate and coordinated action… to assure credibility and transparency' of financial reporting. Levitt’s speech emphasized the importance of clear financial reporting to those gathered at New York University. Reporting which has bowed to the pressures and tricks of earnings management. Levitt specifically addresses five of the most popular tricks used by firms to smooth earnings. Secondly, Levitt outlines an eight part action plan to recover the integrity of financial reporting in the U.S. market place. What are the basic objectives of financial reporting? Generally accepted accounting principles provide information that identifies, measures, and communicates financial information about economic entities to reasonably knowledgeable users. Information that is a source of decision making for a wide array of users, most importantly, by investors and creditors. Investors and creditors who are responsible for effective allocation of capital in our economy. If financial reporting becomes obscure and indecipherable, society loses the benefits of effective capital allocation. Nothing illustrates the importance of transparent information better than the pre-1930’s era of anything goes accounting. An era that left a chasm of misinformation in the market. A chasm that was a contributing factor to the market collapse of 1929 and the years of economic depression. An entire society suffered the repercussions of misinformation. Families, and retirees depend on the credibility of financial reporting for their futures and livelihoods. Levitt describes financial reporting as, a bond between the company and the investor which if damaged can have disastrous, long-lasting consequences. Once again, the bond is being tested. Tested by a financial community fixated on consensus earnings estimates. The pressure to achieve consensus estimates has never been so intense. The market demands consistency and punishes those who come up short. Eric Benhamou, former CEO of 3COM Corporation, learned this hard lesson over a few short weeks in 1996. Benhamou and shareholders lost $7 billion in market value when 3COM failed to achieve expectations. The pressures are a tangled web of expectations, and conflicts of interest which Levitt describes as 'almost self-perpetuating.' With pressures mounting, the answer from U.S. managers has been earnings management with a mix of managed expectations. March of 1997 Fortune magazine reported that for an unprecedented sixteen consecutive quarters, more S&P 500 companies have beat the consensus earnings estimate than missed them. The sign of a quickly growing economy and a measure of the importance the market has placed on consensus earnings estimates. The singular emphasis on earnings growth by investors has opened the door to earnings management solutions. Solutions that are further being reinforced to manage