Risk in Accounting

Shyam Sunder

Abacus, 2015, vol. 51, issue 4, 536-548

Abstract: type="main">

Risk and uncertainty are inherent in the environment and functions of accounting. Accounting reports, systems, norms, and rules help people decide, and also determine how they decide in such an environment. Diverse normative theories and descriptions of coping with risk and uncertainty yield different implications for accounting. Chambers was an articulate, forceful, and celebrated proponent of market values, while Ijiri did the same for historical costs. Elements of accounting theory that diverge in their emphases on historical cost versus market values can be linked to the divergence in the theories of risk and decision making. This largely unrecognized link between the conflicting accounting theories and their respective implicit assumptions about risky decisions may help us reconcile, understand, and progress beyond the accounting debates of the past century.

Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/abac.12060 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:abacus:v:51:y:2015:i:4:p:536-548

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0001-3072

Access Statistics for this article

Abacus is currently edited by G.W. Dean and S. Jones

More articles in Abacus from Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().