Anticipatory Reporting Standards

The Conceptual Framework offers an approach to understanding and managing reporting choices and their regulation. Qualitative characteristics of the underlying information, in terms of an unrelenting focus on relevance and reliability to the exclusion of particular interests or transaction motives, is a cornerstone of the Framework. We argue that the focus on qualitative characteristics precludes a focus on first-order economic fundamentals and, in the process, invites a static view of reporting standards, as opposed to one based on anticipation of their effect.