An Induced Theory of Accounting Under Risk.

Abstract 1. SUMMARY IN two previous papers 1 12, a family of normative models of the individual's economic decision problem under risk were presented. At the same time certain implications of these models with respect to individual behavior were deduced for a class of utility functions. In a separate article 7, it was demonstrated that these models also give rise to an induced theory of the formation and operation of firms under risk for the aforementioned class of utility functions. In the present paper, it will be shown that the same models, developed with the individual in mind, have as further off-spring an induced theory of accounting for all firms so formed. In Section 2, the basic approach of the present study to the development of normative accounting theory is discussed. This section also considers some of the relationships of the present paper to other studies concerned with the development of prescriptive theories of accounting. In Section 3, the various components of the basic decision model used in the present paper are constructed. The individual's objective is postulated to be the maximization of expected utility from consumption as long as he lives and from the bequest left upon his death; his lifetime is presumed to be a random variable. The individual's resources are assumed to consist of an initial capital position (which may be negative) and a noncapital income stream. The latter, which may possess any time-shape, is assumed to be known with certainty and to terminate upon his death. In addition to insurance available at a "fair" rate, the individual faces both financial opportunities (borrowing and lending) and an arbitrary number of productive investment opportunities. The interest rate is presumed to be known but may have any time-shape. The returns from the productive opportunities are assumed to be random variables, whose probability distributions may differ from period to period but are assumed to satisfy the...