An Investigation of Managers' Adaptations to SFAS No. 2: Accounting for Research and Development Costs
研究美国SFAS第2号公告要求研发支出费用化后，管理者如何调整行为，以及该准则对小型研发密集型企业的资本成本和投资决策的意外经济后果。
Since 1975, Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 2 (SFAS#2) has required U.S. corporations to expense most research and development (R&D) costs in the period incurred, primarily because of the uncertain nature of future benefits derived from R&D (SFAS#2 [1974b, para. 39-49, 52]). However, SFAS#2 may have had some unintended economic consequences. (1) For small, research-intensive firms, required expensing of R&D costs generally would result in lower and/or more volatile reported earnings, lower stockholders' equity, and a higher debt-to-equity ratio. These could translate into higher capital costs and subsequently lower capital investment in these firms. The public record of position papers and testimony before the FASB [1974a] shows that smaller, developing firms (and several large public accounting firms) were strongly opposed to mandatory expensing of R&D. (2) If managers are evaluated on reported earnings, required expensing of R&D costs could bias managers against investments in R&D (e.g., in favor of other capitalizable investments) (AAA [1977] and Selto [1982]). For example,