The disclosure of corporate forecasts of projected annual earnings was a topic of intensive debate within the investment community during the years 1970-75. Questions of accuracy, objectivity, independent certification, and investment utility were examined from a number of theoretic and pragmatic viewpoints.' Most of these inquiries appear to assume that an investor's beliefs and/or actions may be affected by the disclosure of a management forecast, and several explore the possible rewards and sanctions that a firm may experience as a result of forecast accuracy. The purpose of this study is to test the hypothesized information content of management forecasts through the examination of the common stock price behavior which accompanied the voluntary disclosure of 336 forecasts of annual earnings per share during the years 1963-67. The results reported here indicate that these forecast disclosures were accompanied by significant price adjustments, from which the inference may be drawn that either the data presented in a management forecast, the act of voluntary disclosure, or both, convey information to investors.

Disclosures, Financial reporting, Internationals study, Disclosure quantity

Accounting Information systems, Decision making, Uncertainty, Information requirement

M. Edgar Barrett, [Discussion of Accounting for Intercorporate Investments: A Behavior Field Experiment]: A Reply, Journal of Accounting Research, Vol. 9, Empirical Research in Accounting: Selected Studies 1971 (1971), pp. 79-92

Historical cost, Valuation

Prior to a comprehensive attempt to resolve many financial accounting controversies existing in United States,' more about interaction of accounting data with decisions made by known users of that data is needed. An attempt to acquire additional would be in line with implied decision-making criterion in American Accounting Association's statement that accounting is the process of identifying, measuring and communicating economic to permit informed judgments and decisions by users of information (emphasis supplied).2 In past few years, a number of accounting researchers have used behavioral field experiments as a means of investigating relationship between changes in methods used to gather and present financial accounting data and decisions made by specific users of that data.3 These researchers have generally concluded that decisions made by

Net realizable value as a basis for inventory valuation has been advocated and adopted in practice under the following circumstances: 1. When estimates of cost are arbitrary and a ready market exists for the goods, as is typically the case in the extractive industries; 2. When joint products are prevalent, as in the meat packing industry, and 3. When the expected proceeds from the sale of the inventory items are below historical costs because of price changes, damage, or obsolescence. These circumstances represent cases in which valuation on a historical cost basis breaks down either because of the infeasibility of determining meaningful cost estimates or because historical cost overstates expected value. However, beginning with Canning,1 many have advocated using net realizable value for inventory valuation on its own merits and not just because of the shortcomings of the historical cost basis. When future cash flows could be estimated or approximated, Canning favored direct valuation of inventories, his terminology for net realizable value. According to Canning:

Forecasting, Firm performance