Towards an Understanding of the Role of Standard Setters in Standard Setting

Abstract

We investigate the effect of standard setters in standard setting: We examine how certain professional and political characteristics of FASB members and SEC commissioners predict the accounting “reliability” and “relevance” of proposed standards. Notably, we find FASB members with backgrounds in financial services are more likely to propose standards that decrease “reliability” and increase “relevance,” partly due to their tendency to propose fair-value methods. We find opposite results for FASB members affiliated with the Democratic Party, although only when excluding financial-services background as an independent variable. Jackknife procedures show that results are robust to omitting any individual standard setter.

Keywords: accounting, FASB, politics, relevance, reliability, standard setting

JEL Classification: D72, D78, G18, K22, L51, M41