Economic Consequences in Intermediate Textbooks: A Review After Eight Years.

Abstract The objective of this paper is to compare the presentations of economic consequences issues in intermediate accounting textbooks today with those reported in Zeff 1980. As in the previous study, the three topical areas are the investment tax credit, oil and gas accounting, and the restructuring of troubled debt. It was found that a much higher fraction of textbook treatments of the three topical areas met a minimum standard for the presentation of economic consequences issues than was the case in 1980. Correspondingly, fewer discussions referred only to self-interested lobbying behavior without identifying the parties' self-interested motivations. On the other hand, a major fraction of textbook authors in both studies do not refer to economic consequences issues at all.