Alternative Interim Reporting Techniques Within a Dynamic Framework: Comments and Extensions.
评论了Fried和Livnat关于中期盈余报告替代方法的分析，指出信息条件（管理层还是用户）会影响结论，并强调管理层预测能力的重要性。
Abstract The article focuses on comments on alternative interim reporting techniques within a dynamic framework. In an interesting recent paper, Dov Fried Joshua Livnat, conducted a formal analysis of alternative methods for interim earnings reporting. Their purpose was to investigate the conditions and assumptions under which these methods individually produce the most desirable results, given assumed sets of objectives. It is, however, essential to go further than this and ask on whose information these distributions are conditioned, that is, management or users. The point is not trivial, since management will have more information than users. In fact, the subsequent development in paper by Fried and Livnat makes clear that conditioning is on users' information, and moreover that users must be able to calculate in order to modify their forecasts when new information becomes available. Naturally, any conclusions will depend on the ability of management to forecast. For any given objective-reporting combination, Fried and Livnat derive the variance of the predictive distribution. One conclusion that emerges when the problem is viewed in this light is that estimates of the individual cash flows, under the integral approach, can be very poor.