U.S. GAAP and the software industry in particular, are on the verge of a major alteration in revenue-recognition accounting standards. The IASB-FASB joint revenue-recognition project is due to be finalized over the next year with the result being a shift from a rules-based set of accounting standards to a principles-based standard. The purpose of this research is to examine financial statement preparers' software revenue-recognition decisions under a principles-based accounting standard compared to a rules-based accounting standard both with and without a personal incentive to maximize revenue. The 2 X 2 between-subjects experiment examines the revenue-recognition judgments and decisions of financial statement preparers involved in applying rules-based standards (U.S. GAAP) and a principles-based standard (IASB-FASB Exposure Draft: Revenue from Contracts with Customers) with and without a personal incentive to maximize revenue. The study included 127 experienced financial statement preparers with an average of 20 years of experience and 82% at a manager/director level or above. The results indicate financial statement preparers applying rules-based standards in a revenue-recognition scenario provide less accurate revenue decisions than when applying a principles-based standard. Moreover, the results did not show that a personal incentive influenced the financial statement preparers in their revenue-recognition decisions. Surprisingly, in the rules-based and principles-based scenarios where a personal incentive was not present, the arithmetic mean recommended revenue amounts were higher. In providing the amount of judgment required to determine the revenue to be recognized, there was not a statistically significant difference in the amount of judgment required between subjects applying rules-based standards and subjects applying principles-based standards. The arithmetic means for rules-based subjects and principles-based indicated some judgment however not significant judgment was required. This is interesting to note as so few subjects correctly answered the revenue amount and neglected to fully apply the guidance.

Submitted by Cristiane Oliveira (cristiane.oliveira@fgv.br) on 2011-06-10T20:57:55Z No. of bitstreams: 1 61080200030.pdf: 831441 bytes, checksum: 5e02494d934af7fa902abad3ff3dad7e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Vera Lúcia Mourão(vera.mourao@fgv.br) on 2011-06-10T20:59:43Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 61080200030.pdf: 831441 bytes, checksum: 5e02494d934af7fa902abad3ff3dad7e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Vera Lúcia Mourão(vera.mourao@fgv.br) on 2011-06-10T21:00:30Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 61080200030.pdf: 831441 bytes, checksum: 5e02494d934af7fa902abad3ff3dad7e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2011-06-10T21:36:42Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 61080200030.pdf: 831441 bytes, checksum: 5e02494d934af7fa902abad3ff3dad7e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-09-27 / Nos últimos 15 anos, o licenciamento ambiental transformou-se num dos maiores desafios regulatórios do Estado brasileiro. Além de ser apontado como um processo ineficiente, burocrático e inibidor de novos investimentos públicos e privados, o licenciamento ambiental passou a ser caracterizado, inclusive pelos próprios órgãos licenciadores, como um instrumento crescentemente sem efetividade para a proteção do meio ambiente. Esta dissertação tem como objetivo verificar se as falhas do licenciamento ambiental federal (falta de eficiência e falta de efetividade) estão de alguma maneira relacionadas à forma como o Estado brasileiro está organizado para a criação e reformulação de suas normas ambientais. A partir de uma análise econômica do grau de precisão das normas jurídicas, construiu-se um modelo teórico para avaliar a atuação do Congresso Nacional, do Poder Judiciário e do CONAMA em torno do licenciamento ambiental federal. Os desvios institucionais encontrados apontam para a necessidade de reformas envolvendo, sobretudo, a repartição de competências normativas dos órgãos ambientais e o processo de produção normativa no CONAMA. / In the last 15 years, environmental permitting became one of the most challenging regulatory issues in the Brazilian public policy debate. It is regarded not only as an inefficient and excessively bureaucratic administrative procedure, but also as a growingly ineffective instrument for the environmental protection. This study has made an attempt to identify the institutional problems behind our environmental permitting inefficient and ineffective legal norms. Based on an economic analysis of rules and standards, we build a theoretical model to evaluate the different roles played by the National Congress, the courts and CONAMA in shaping the environmental permitting legal norms. The findings suggest that a reform in our environmental permitting law should face two main issues: the delegation of rulemaking authority to environmental departments and CONAMA’s administrative rulemaking procedure.