The Accounting Review Vol. 75 No. 2 2000
Effects of Comprehensive-Income Characteristics on Nonprofessional Investors' Judgments: The Role of Financial-Statement Presentation Format
Abstract
Statement of Financial Accounting Standards (SFAS) No. 130 requires companies to report comprehensive income in a primary financial statement, but allows its presentation in either a statement of comprehensive income or a statement of stockholders' equity (Financial Accounting Standards Board [FASB] 1997). In an experiment, we examine whether and how alternative presentation formats affect nonprofessional investors' processing of comprehensive-income information, specifically, information disclosing the volatility of unrealized gains on available-for-sale marketable securities. The results show that nonprofessional investors' judgments of corporate and management performance reflect the volatility of comprehensive income only when it is presented in a statement of comprehensive income. We provide evidence consistent with our psychology-based framework that these findings occur because format affects how nonprofessional investors weight comprehensive-income information and not whether they acquire this information or how they evaluate it.
- DOI
- 10.2308/accr.2000.75.2.179
- Volume
- 75
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 179-207
- Language
- en
- Sources
- openalex bibtex:phds-export.bib crossref