The standard-setters’ toolkit: can principles prevail over bright lines?
研究了澳大利亚、加拿大、英国和美国四个国家租赁密集型行业的企业数据，发现明确要求运用原则或取消明线测试并未显著增加资本化租赁处理的使用，表明财务报告结果对这些准则制定工具相对不敏感。
Abstract We study lease accounting in an international panel data set to examine how accounting outcomes vary with two features of accounting standards: the emphasis on using professional judgement to apply principles, and the presence or absence of bright-line tests. We study four countries—Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US—and companies in two lease-intensive industries—retail and transportation. Our primary study period spans the time when Australia and the UK switched from domestic to international accounting standards, and in one test, we also consider Canada’s transition to international standards. We find that neither an explicit requirement to apply a principle nor omitting bright-line tests materially increases the use of capital lease treatment among these firms. Overall, we conclude that this financial reporting outcome is relatively insensitive to these standard-setting tools.